


Rajah's Curse

by annbe11 (Annbell)



Series: Rajah's Curse Universe [1]
Category: Aladdin (1992), Aladdin (2019), Tiger's Curse Series - Colleen Houck
Genre: Ababwa, Aladdin as Antagonist, Alternate Universe, Anger Management, Childhood Friends, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Curses, Dhiren is Ren, Engagement, Exploring the Palace, F/M, Flashbacks, Friendship/Love, Illusions, Jafar is not an idiot, Late at Night, Lies, Magic, Mystery, POV Animal, Pet, Picnics, Princes & Princesses, Rajah is Dhiren, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Smart Jafar, Smart Jasmine, Tigers, Were-Creatures, Worldbuilding, betrothal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 35
Words: 48,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25839307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annbell/pseuds/annbe11
Summary: My name is Prince Alagan Dhiren Rajaram. I am the second prince of the Mujulaain Empire and the betrothed of Princess Jasmine, or I used to be. Five years ago, I was transformed into a tiger and now everyone thinks that I'm just Jasmine's pet, Rajah.Despite my reduced circumstances, I have worked to aid the princess and have chased off all of her unworthy suitors until Prince Ali. Jasmine wants to believe that this prince is different, but I know better.It is my duty to protect my princess and I will not fail.
Relationships: Jasmine & Rajah (Disney), Jasmine/Dhiren, Jasmine/Rajah (Disney), Jasmine/Ren
Series: Rajah's Curse Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874959
Comments: 37
Kudos: 18





	1. An Unhappy Princess

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,
> 
> This is my first time posting a story on AO3. But I hear this is the cool place to be? I started this on Fanfiction.net, but now I am posting here and on Fanfiction.net at the same time.

I was laying down next to Princess Jasmine in the sultan’s study when she asked, “Rajah, who should I have accompanying Aqela Hadad on her expedition to get novelty cotton from Genoa?”

I looked up at her. The princess was sitting at the study’s desk and examining a few papers that were probably from the textile’s guild.

Jasmine continued, “Aqela has secured a ship and crew within her proposed budget but they are a bit rough. She is asking me to find someone to act as her partner or at least, as a figurehead to help her be taken more seriously on her expedition.”

I nodded. Aqela was a smart woman. She wanted a government-affiliated partner to make things run smoothly on this trip.

Jasmine held one of the papers out in front of me. “I have a list of potential merchant partners, shall I read it out to you?”

I reached up and swiped the list away. Merchants would not do. That was not what Aqela needed. She knew her fellow merchants, even the government-sponsored ones, would double-cross her in a heartbeat.

“Rajah…” Jasmine moaned. She leaned over to grab the paper. It now had claw marks through it.

I huffed out a breath and gave her a look of disappointment. The princess may understand numbers and lists but people were still a mystery to her.

“Fine, what do you suggest?”

I got up and went outside the study. After a moment, Jasmine followed. I nodded at the guard on duty at the study door.

“Amir?” she asked.

I snorted. No, not Amir, he was an idiot. Even now Amir stood slacked jawed as the beautiful princess studied him intently.

Then she clapped her hands together. “Oh, you mean a guard in general. Any guard,” she said to me.

I nodded.

“That’s a great idea!” she said excitedly. She turned and left poor Amir staring at her retreating form. His eyes were focused on her hips.

I growled a warning at him.

Amir jerked and he straightened up. His eyes refocused to stare at the corridor. I gave him one last warning look before following the princess inside the study.

She was back at her desk. In her hand was a quill that she was tapping against her chin. I would bet that she was starting a list of guards. The princess had records for everything.

She looked down at me as I settled back into my spot beside her desk. “What do you think of Fahir? He has several years of sailing experience and he looks the part.”

I shook my head. Fahir would not be an ideal choice. He had hated his time at sea. Plus, he was a little too pompous to be left on his own.

“No? How about Muhammad then? He has some sailing experience and he’s reliable.”

I thought about it for a moment but that was an easy choice. Muhammad was a good man. He looked fairly intelligent and would pass for a merchant. And most importantly, he followed orders. That man would be willing to do things exactly as this woman merchant instructed. No questions asked. I nodded enthusiastically.

The princess smiled and rubbed my head affectionately. “Excellent! I’ll draft a reply for father to sign.”

She pulled out a new piece of paper but before she could begin writing, the sultan stormed in.

The man’s chest was puffed up like a balloon. Here we go. “Jasmine! Where is Prince Achmed?”

The princess looked up from her work. “He’s gone. Rajah dismissed him.”

“Gone? Gone!” the sultan exclaimed. “But he just got here.”

The princess shrugged and tried to start writing.

“Don’t just ignore me,” he blustered. “Young lady, I need you to take this seriously.”

Jasmine put down the pen.

“I am taking this seriously. Achmed was an idiot like the last five suitors and a bigoted one at that. You know, that I won’t submit to a man who can’t even think. Rajah here does a better job and he’s just a tiger.”

I growled.

She patted my head, “The best and smartest tiger in the world,” she whispered.

“But Jasmine,” the sultan pleaded, “Your birthday is less than a year away and the law says:”

“I must marry a prince by my sixteenth birthday. I know what the law says. Honestly, father, I could care less. You make the laws.”

“Not this one. It is tradition…” the sultan whined.

Jasmine sighed. “You know I’m not trying to be overly picky. I just… don’t want our kingdom in the wrong hands. I haven’t been able to imagine ruling this place with any of the princes I met so far.”

“Except for Prince Dhiren,” the sultan said sulkily.

“Except for him I suppose,” she amended.

“If only he hadn’t been lost. Betrothed marriages are so much easier than all of this. But Jafar is doing the best he can,” the sultan put in.

The princess and I exchanged a look.

The sultan heedless of us continued, “You know how hard he works. If only you gave these princes more of a chance and kept them away from Rajah.”

I growled again.

Jasmine patted my head. “If they can’t handle my tiger. Then they can’t handle me.”

The sultan shook his head. “Well next time give the prince more than an afternoon. Will you?”

Jasmine hesitated.

“For me,” the sultan added.

She acquiesced. “Very well. If he doesn’t insult me within the first five minutes, I’ll give him more of a chance.”

The sultan nodded. This was the usual end of their argument. They talked more civilly after that, letting the age-old disagreement simmer until the next prince.

As soon as the sultan left, however, I knew what was coming next.

The princess moaned. “Rajah! I can’t take this anymore. I swear all princes are fools. Even the ones I invite are useless. I could never marry any of them.” She kicked at the floor. “I sometimes wish I could marry you, Rajah. You as a tiger really do outclass all of these wannabe princes. And I know you and I make a good team.”

She scratched my head and I chuffed happily. She didn’t know how much I wished she wasn’t joking.

“I’m going out tonight,” she said suddenly.

I groaned.

“Come on, I deserve a break after what I went through today. Aladdin promised to show me a new part of the night market the last time I saw him.”

I grumbled. Aladdin. I hated that boy. He was some street urchin who had saved the princess on her first trip out when she was 13. Nowadays every time she rejected a suitor, he seemed to be right there to help her “escape”.

“I promise I’ll follow the rules. I’ll be safe,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. Princess Jasmine? Safe?

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud. Aladdin will be there,” she said.

As if that was a comfort. That boy and his monkey attracted more trouble than a sack of gold. Jasmine was always getting into scrapes with him.

But even with all my grumbling and pleading, I couldn’t stop the princess any more than the sultan could. The one time I had tried to; it had nearly gotten both of us killed. After that, I swore for both our sakes not to do that again.

So, as the princess changed into her disguise, I waited in the garden to give her a boost out into the city. My mind wondered. Her words about us marrying brought up an old memory, one I could never forget.


	2. An Indian Prince

I remember when I first arrived in Agrabah years and years ago. I was fifteen and on my way to see my betrothed for the first time. I came with a small band of guards and servants.

I remember standing and look up at the north side palace from the ship docks. I thought to myself that the paintings did not do Agrabah justice. The palace was magnificent. It dwarfed everything around it and the city overflowed with signs of wealth and prosperity.

When I entered the palace, I was announced. One of my servants cried out, “Behold, Prince Alagan Dhiren Rajaram, second son of King Rajaram and Queen Deschen of Mujulaain.”

I winced at the announcement. I had always thought I was the crown prince of my country but when I had first turned fifteen, my parents told me the truth. They revealed to me that I was actually their second son and Kishan, my brother, was the true heir to the throne. They lied to both of us to protect Kishan from some prophecy.

Then they told me that I was betrothed to Princess Jasmine and must seek her out before the end of the year. Here I was now. It was months later, but my new title still grated. I had thought I would be king one day, but that honor was gone forever.

I hid my distaste with a deep bow. Only after I had controlled my expression did I look up into the clever eyes of Princess Jasmine.

As a ten-year-old, the princess was a pretty little girl of delicate features. But beyond that, there wasn’t much more to say about her. At fifteen, I was practically a man and she was a mere girl sitting on a throne that was too big for her.

The sultan sat beside her. He was a plump man with a jolly face. “I am so happy to finally meet you, Prince Alagan,” the sultan said. “Your parents have been singing your praises for years.”

“Please,” I said, “Call me Dhiren.”

“Very well,” the sultan said. “Then you must call me, Hamed.”

He turned to the young princess. “Well, Jasmine, what do you think?”

The princess looked at me thoughtfully, “Mujulaain is a very powerful kingdom. So, in that way, I suppose he is suitable. I can’t really say anything else.”

I blinked. That was an odd thing for a ten-year-old to say.

The sultan glanced nervously between me and Jasmine. “Jasmine dear, what are you saying? Of course, you can say something else.” Then he turned to me, “Please forgive her. Princesses, you know, they say the darndest things.”

“Of course, Father is right,” Jasmine agreed, “Forgive me for not instantly liking you, Prince Dhiren. You have very nice…eyes?”

“Well, that’s better,” the sultan said as if it was all cleared up.

But it didn’t answer my question. Why had she said that? Was it truly an insult or was she merely parroting something she’d heard her father say earlier?

It was a question for another time, so I said instead, “Thank you for the compliment, Princess Jasmine. Your eyes are also…nice.”

I stifled a smirk and continued, “I am looking forward to forging a new connection between your kingdom and mine. After all, Mujulaain is a very powerful kingdom, but Agrabah _is_ the jewel of the desert. I am already impressed by the city’s splendor and charm.”

“Such pretty words,” the sultan said appreciatively.

The princess said nothing. The look in her eyes was cautious and I wondered what the little princess could be thinking.


	3. The Sultana

Young Princess Jasmine was far too smart for her own good. Somehow, she was already attending political meetings. The princess was well informed and when someone chose to humor her, they found her opinions more well thought out than most of the actual officials.

However, that intelligence did not seem to do the princess many favors. People often complained of her pert manner behind her back. And it was a court joke that as politically active as Princess Jasmine was, the foreign policy grand vizier who was the late sultana’s subordinate still refused to let the little princess into the all-female department.

In short, the princess was something of a court oddity.

I watched the court intrigue for a few days before I earnestly jumped in. I had not been the perfect son of Mujulaain for nothing. I tried to see everything as I casually charmed the court. The sultan was easy and his noblemen were not much harder to please.

The grand viziers, however, were not impressed by me. Jafar and Rikisha were the grand viziers of domestic and foreign policy respectively. Rikisha antagonized me from day one. It was obvious that she had one ambition: to marry the sultan. Every night at court, she was busy trying to seduce the poor man.

Jafar was less hostile but by no means friendly. After one, uncomfortable one-on-one conversation about loyalty where he and his red parrot looked down on me, he left me alone. Still, during public events, both viziers made polite conversation with me as diplomats do.

While I endeavored to integrate myself into the court, I could tell Princess Jasmine was watching me. She wasn’t exactly subtle about it. Our eyes kept meeting during court proceedings and evening entertainments.

She’d raise an eyebrow at me in challenge. I’d simply smile. I refused to move until the time was right.

Finally, I felt ready to try and engage the princess. During an evening festival, I approached her. “Good evening princess,”

Princess Jasmine looked up at me. “Is it?” she said. “I much rather be elsewhere.”

“Where would you like to be?”

She sniffed. She was obviously unimpressed by my conversation.

I ventured a well-informed guess. “Perhaps in the gardens, your mother’s study, or maybe... outside the gates?”

She looked up at me then. “You’ve been spying on me.”

“And you’ve been spying on me.” I pointed out.

She pouted. “It’s not fair you know. I didn’t ask to be an ignorant child. I cannot wait until I’m old enough to gain the experience people keep lording over me. Someday, I will be sultana and I will be able to do whatever I please.”

She glared at me as if expecting me to argue with her. “Well?” she shot at me. “Don’t patronize me. I know you’re just like the rest. You don’t approve of my dream either.”

She had me. There was no way I could approve of that. I stood there in silence unsure of what to say without lying to her.

The princess smiled triumphantly. She thought she had won, but I wasn’t done yet.

At last, I replied, “Not even, my father, the king, can do whatever he wants. Freedom like that takes more than age, knowledge, or power. There are restrictions on everyone.”

She frowned at me but seemed to process my words. Finally, she said, “That may be true. But little princesses have more restrictions than most.”

I shook my head and then I gestured to one of the serving girls who was pouring a drink for a patron. “Do you think she likes that job?” I asked.

Princess Jasmine frowned at the girl. “I suppose so,” the princess said.

“Look again.”

The servant had a pinched expression. The man she was serving was being loud and obnoxious as he talked to her.

“I guess not,” Princess Jasmine admitted.

“She has to do that job to eat and live,” I said, “I’m sure she’d love to have the level of freedom you do, to wander the palace, learn about Agrabah, and eat whatever you like.”

“Perhaps,” the princess said begrudgingly, “but at least she’s not alone. See.” The princess pointed at another serving woman who was moving to relieve the girl we had been watching. The first girl smiled and gratefully returned to the kitchen.

“Plus,” she added, “that girl doesn’t have a whole city-state watching her every action, and depending on her to grow quickly.”

The young princess’s eyes grew sad. It was a look I knew well. It was the look of a weary monarch. Princess Jasmine was so young to look like that. Yet I understood. Her father was incompetent. The court was shallow and the grand viziers were power-hungry and untrustworthy.

And more than anything there was the death of the sultana. The loss of the princess’s mother was felt throughout the kingdom. I didn’t go a day without hearing some reference to the late sultana. The little princess was working hard to fill the hole left by her mother, but it wasn’t enough.

I put a hand on her shoulder and said, “You don’t have to be alone.”

She looked up at me. Her eyes were wide. In that moment, I saw a vulnerable little girl who needed a friend.

“I promise,” I told her, “I’ll help you. Together, we’ll be able to bear the responsibility and scrutiny of this kingdom. And maybe we’ll find a little more freedom that way as well.”

Princess Jasmine gave me a small half-smile. “You know,” she said, “For an adult, you’re not so bad, Prince Dhiren.”

“For a little girl, you’re not so bad yourself,” I said smiling back.

We stood there together in silence as we watched the festivities. For the first time, I too was feeling better. I may have lost the crown to my brother, but I had a new calling. This girl and her kingdom, they needed me and that might be enough.


	4. Fragile Things

Princess Jasmine and I started to bond after that night but it was a fragile alliance. We were cautious with each other and stuck to safe topics. Surprisingly, politics was the easiest thing for us to discuss. We had similar ideologies on a lot of different policies.

Princess Jasmine kept surprising me with how much she understood and her knowledge of economics and taxes quite simply outclassed mine. I tried to pretend like it didn’t bother me, but it did.

One day, she taunted me after a particularly grueling meeting on updating Agrabah’s wood taxes. “It was nice to see Rikisha patronizing someone else for a change. Doesn't feel good, does it?”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

The princess stared at me in shock.

“I apologize,” I said swiftly, “That was uncalled for.”

For some reason, I felt a need to compete with the princess like I had competed with my brother, Kishan. It was foolish, feeling that I had to best a little girl. I should know better.

Princess Jasmine wasn’t bothered by my outburst. Instead, she said, “So, there is a person, underneath your political facade after all.”

“You sound like my brother,” I couldn’t resist saying. She didn’t know it wasn’t a compliment.

“At least I sound like someone. You sound like everyone. You tell me that you believe in one thing during our talks, but at meetings, you say everything but that,” she told me. “I can’t tell which is real.”

“It’s all real,” I said. My voice was still rough with annoyance at her and myself. “Politics is complicated.”

The princess sighed. “People are complicated. Sometimes I wish, I could replace the entire court with animals. They don’t play these types of games.”

My irritation vanished as I tried to keep a straight face. “Animals? Princess, do you want a zoo instead of a court?”

“Maybe,” she said defiantly.

My mouth twitched, but I refused to smile. I kept my tone light and casual. “Zoos are a lot of work,” I pointed out, “and there are already a lot of animals around here.”

“It wouldn’t have to be a big zoo,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows. “The court has over 100 people in it.”

Princess Jasmine glared at me. “Fine. Maybe I wouldn’t want a zoo, but it’d be nice to have a pet. A real pet, not like the animals in the gardens.”

A pet. Sometimes I forgot just how young the princess was. “What type of pet?” I asked.

“A tiger,” the princess said decisively. “I’ve always liked tigers. My mother...” the princess stopped and all the playfulness left her voice. “This is going to sound childish.”

“So?” I asked. She was a child after all. Even if we both forgot it sometimes, underneath all that intelligence, she really was just a child. It was not right that she was so serious most of the time. Even Kishan and I had played some at her age.

The princess grimaced and then she muttered something.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“She promised me a tiger for my birthday…when I was older.”

“Oh. That’s-”

“No, don’t say anything,” she said, obviously embarrassed. “I said it was childish. You don’t have to use your court talk to baby me like Rikisha and the rest. I got enough of that when my mother died.”

“Princess,” I began.

“Do you want to go with me to my father's study and prepare a tax proposal for the next meeting?” she said in a rush.

There was a pause. I wanted to talk about the other things. I wanted to talk to Jasmine about her mother, her troubles at court, and even her love of tigers. There was so much more to her than the princess who was trying to get involved in politics. There was more to me too.

“Come on,” Princess Jasmine said, “Let's prepare something that even Rikisha and her pretentious courtiers can't ignore.”

She looked desperate and I could tell today was not the day to bring up those things. Instead, I grinned and said, “Alright. Let's see what we can do.”

I followed the princess to her father's study.

I knew that there were a lot of unsaid things between me and Princess Jasmine. I still felt like I was trying to woo a political ally instead of a friend. But she was only 10 and we weren't going to be married until she was at least 15. I told myself that I would have plenty of chances to improve my relationship with the princess.

Back then, I had thought time and patience would fix our problems. In the end, I never got to find out.


	5. The Kidnapper

I shook my head and tried to push the old memories away. I had bigger problems right now. Jasmine hadn’t come back at the usual time and I was growing worried. If it got past sunrise, I would have to notify someone.

Just as I was gearing up to go bother one of the guards, I caught Jasmine’s scent and saw her marching towards me. She looked furious.

“Rajah, I need you to track Jafar. I can’t find the man anywhere.”

I blinked. The princess was sweating and she was still wearing her dull brown disguise. What on earth was going on?

“Now, Rajah,” she snapped.

I grunted at her.

“Please,” she added.

I raised my nose into the air and sniffed. Ever since I became a tiger, my sense of smell had become sensitive. I mean all animals were supposed to have a better sense of smell, but when I concentrated, I could track just about anyone in this palace.

Jafar’s scent of staff polish, oil, and spice filled my nose. He was surprisingly close.

“Rajah?” Jasmine asked tentatively.

I nodded. I had him. I strode to across the garden to a lesser-used hallway that connected to the throne room. Jasmine followed.

I led Jasmine into the hallway and just as I sensed, he was there heading toward the throne room. Grand Vizier Jafar had aged very little in the last few years. His sleek goatee was still as black as his chosen robes. He held his iconic snake staff in one hand. The rubies in the staff matched the jewel in his headpiece and his ruby ring. The only difference between now and then was that his supremely annoying red parrot, Iago, was missing at the moment.

“Jafar!” Jasmine called out.

The grand vizier turned and looked down at us. I will never understand how the man could look so malevolent and trustworthy at the same time. Even now, when the man was clearly displeased to be interrupted, he gave off a sense that he could be confided in.

The grand vizier’s look of disdain morphed into a warm and unsettling smile as he simpered, “Princess Jasmine, what an unusual ensemble you have on.”

Jasmine ignored his words and said, “I demand that you release Aladdin Rajul Alsiyn from our dungeons immediately.”

I stared at her. Aladdin had been captured?

At first, Jafar frowned at her. “Princess,” he said, “it is not very becoming to be issuing commands when you are dressed like a peasant with the tiger at your side no less.”

I narrowed my eyes. The man never used my name.

“Jafar. I gave you an order. This is not the time to discuss my royal façade,” Jasmine snapped.

“On the contrary, princess,” Jafar said, “Now is the perfect time. For you see, that is exactly why you are here.”

“I’m here to set Aladdin Rajul Alsiyn free,” she said.

“Princess, I have always believed that you are a lovely and intelligent woman just like your mother. I have yet to regret supporting you in your political career. You have done excellent work in the foreign policy’s trade department. And for those reasons, I have often defended you from your father’s more stringent beliefs, supported your exhaustive search for a husband, and smoothed over the feathers you have ruffled over the years.”

I did not like where this was going. I glanced up at Jasmine to exchange a look but she wasn’t watching me. Her eyes were fixed on Jafar. “What does any of that have to do with Aladdin Alsiyn?”

“It has everything to do with the boy. I work tirelessly for the good of Agrabah. I have excused any particularities in your behavior because I thought you too were dedicated to this great city, but princess you have gone too far even in my eyes. Rumors have spread about your… excursions.”

I knew it. This was bad.

“And today I am saddened to see how true they were. Fraternizing with street rats and rogues is unacceptable, Jasmine. The boy was-”

“Aladdin is a good man,” Jasmine protested.

Jafar practically ignored her interruption. “The boy was a lowlife thief and has been on the wanted list of many merchants and wealthy nobles. Do not disgrace yourself further by defending him. It is too late regardless.”

Too late?

Jasmine glared up at Jafar. “What have you done?”

“The boy has been sentenced for kidnapping you.”

My eyes went wide.

“Kidnapping!” she exclaimed.

“It was the only way to clear your name of those nasty rumors.”

“But the punishment for kidnapping a noble is…”

“Death by beheading.”

Before I could stop her, Jasmine grabbed Jafar’s robes. “You didn’t,” she said.

Jafar pulled her hands away. “I am sorry, princess. As I said, it was the only way.”

I snarled. Liar.

“When my father hears of this,” she began.

“He will not!” Jafar said, slicing through her words. For the first time, he looked truly dangerous. It was only for a moment before his expression smoothed into another uncanny smile. “There are two truths, Princess Jasmine. Either you ran away into the city ignoring the sultan’s only restriction on you or you were kidnapped by a rogue and a thief by no fault of your own.”

“There’s only one truth,” Jasmine hissed.

“Yes, there is only one truth that will ensure your position in this court and your father’s trust. We both know what truth that is,” Jafar said with his eyebrows raised.

My insides went cold. Damn it, he was right. Too much of Jasmine’s political power was tied up with Jafar and the sultan, he would never support us in this.

I looked up at Jasmine to see what she made of it. Her face was blank but there were tears in her eyes.

“I am sorry, princess.” Jafar tried to reach out to her but I stepped in front of her, guarding her from this man.

Jafar glanced down at me as I growled at him.

He looked away and called out, “Come. Iago.”

The parrot seemed to appear from nowhere as it fluttered onto the vizier’s shoulder.

“We must leave the princess to rest. She is feeling unwell,” Jafar said.

Jafar turned and left us. As soon as he and his parrot rounded the corner, Jasmine collapsed onto me.

I nuzzled her as she sobbed into my fur. It wasn’t fair. Aladdin’s death, Jafar’s political machinations, the sultan’s high-handed restrictions, me and my curse, I stuck close to Jasmine and let her cry. One of us should be able to.


	6. Another Prince

Aladdin was dead. I still couldn’t believe it. The boy always struck me as irresponsible and reckless. I can’t say that I was surprised he finally got caught, but execution?

Even I wasn’t jaded enough to want that.

I wanted to be mad at Jafar, but I just couldn’t be. Even though I didn’t exactly believe the vizier was only acting in Jasmine’s best interest, the man had been right. I should have stopped Jasmine’s rendezvouses a long time ago. Now a boy was dead because of us.

I couldn’t share these thoughts with Jasmine, but I did my best to comfort her. I was the only one, save Jafar, who understood what really happened.

Jasmine spent the next few days pretending to be ill and avoiding the court to mourn the loss of Aladdin. I made sure to stay close to her and give her all my attention, even if it meant listening to tales of Aladdin and all the times she’d nearly died because of that foolish boy.

Today, we sat in the gardens. Jasmine was in the middle of a story about Aladdin getting chased through a harem when the ground began to shake. I sat up and my ears twitched.

“What is it, Rajah? Are you bored with my silly tales?”

I shook my head. My ears were still twitching. There was a thrumming sound. Something was coming.

The sultan ran in. “Jasmine! Jasmine! You must come at once!” he said.

Jasmine got up and allowed the sultan to pull her along. I followed in their wake.

The sultan led us up into a high balcony above the throne room. It overlooked the city. It was a tight fit to get up those stairs but I managed it. Out in the open air, I could make out the sounds of tubas, drums, and faint shouting. Soon, I could hear the individual words.

“Make way for Prince Ali! Make way for Prince Ali!”

I turned to look at Jasmine. Another suitor, at a time like this?

After a few moments, she heard it too. Jasmine’s mouth went thin. The sultan, however, was a positive ball of excitement. Jasmine had not revealed Jafar’s political maneuvering to him, so the sultan was happily oblivious as usual.

Down below the voices that called out for this Prince Ali changed. They started singing. I reached up to lean forward on the railing and get a better look.

It was then that I saw something impossible. It was a caravan, but it was unlike any caravan I had ever seen. First, the caravan was nearly as long as the entire city. It had a whole band with dancing girls, drummers, flag-bears, gold carriers, bell ringers, jugglers, swordsmen, bakers, and well it just kept going and going. There was a carriage filled with peacocks, cages with lions and bears, more gold than I'd ever seen in my life, and him, the prince, riding on top of an elephant larger than some of the buildings in the market.

As the circus came closer, I could hear the song more clearly. One man sang about all the prince’s virtues and wealth. The song made outrageous claims about the prince but then there was that caravan, which could not be ignored.

“What is this?” a voice said from behind us. I turned and saw Jafar looking down at the spectacle.

“Look Jafar,” the sultan said, “A prince has come.”

Jafar’s brows came together. “Prince Alexander isn't scheduled to come for another few weeks,” he said.

“Oh no!” the sultan said excitedly, “This is Prince Ali.”

Jafar raised an eyebrow. “I am… unfamiliar.”

Before the sultan could say more, Jasmine turned to leave. “I think I’ll retire to my room.”

“But Jasmine, the song…” the sultan began, but it was too late. The princess had already gone.

“It’s not over,” the sultan said to the empty space.

Jafar put a hand on the sultan. “She needs to prepare for dinner.”

The sultan pouted. “She’s been so moody recently. Teenagers. Jafar, take my advice, and never have children. They are so confusing.”

“Of course, your majesty,” Jafar said. “Very sound advice.” He glanced over to exchange a look with his parrot, but the bird was actually dancing.

“Iago,” Jafar hissed.

“Sorry,” the parrot squawked.

I shook my head. I took one last look at the display below. The prince was passing out gold by the handful to the crowd. Ridiculous.

I left. I would see the prince soon enough. I had to check on Jasmine.


	7. A Royal Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for those of you wondering how much of this fic is based on the 1992 movie versus the 2019 movie, I will say that this story is mostly based on the 1992 movie. If for no other reason than that Rajah is hardly in the 2019 movie.   
> :(  
> However, I do include elements from the new movie. Jasmine, as you may notice, is more explicitly involved in politics here. It was always my headcanon that she was a politically active princess and the 2019 movie agreed with me, sort of. As we go on, it will be clear why I included the 2019 movie for this cross over.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos so far. I hope you're enjoying this.

The princess was fuming in her rooms as I sat watching her. The sultan had just come by to tell us that Prince Ali would be joining us at the head of the table for dinner. The man also informed us that despite the princess’s “illness”, she would be expected to attend.

It was no surprise. The sultan was serious about three things: Jasmine never leaving the palace without his permission, Jasmine getting married by her 16th birthday, and his toy-making hobby. The man was very good at whittling wood figurines.

“I cannot believe this,” she said. “It hasn't even been a week since Aladdin's death. Jafar knows that even if Father does not. And yet I have to court that…that idiot.”

She wiped away the tears that were forming.

I sat up and went over to her, but she pushed me away. “You never liked Aladdin anyway.”

It wasn't untrue, but I still wanted to make her feel better.

“I think…” she paused, “I think he loved me.”

I took a deep breath in. This wasn’t a surprise. I refused to be surprised.

“He proposed, Rajah. Before the guards took him away. He…” She stopped and stared at me.

I was in shock. She hadn’t said any of this before. Granted she hadn’t actually spoken of that night at all, but still.

“And now that he's gone. I just feel so lost.” She knelt down and I knew I should comfort her, but my body was having trouble with moving.

Aladdin had proposed to her. That mangy street rat?

Jasmine let out a sob. I had to force myself to move closer to her. It felt like wading through sand dunes.

“How will I ever get through this?” she asked.

I did my best to store my emotions. I could examine them later. Jasmine needed me now. I rubbed up against her.

She embraced me and said, “Oh Rajah, I’m such a fool.”

I nuzzled my head against her, trying my best to communicate that I was here. That I would be here for her.

When evening came, the sultan sent Jasmine additional maidservants. He was leaving nothing to chance. The efficient ladies took Jasmine away from me to wash and bathe her.

I made my way outside to wait. I was still in shock. Aladdin loved her. He offered to marry her. Yes, I doubt he understood the supreme difference in their classes. Jasmine had never to my knowledge revealed that she was a princess. It was part of our contract, but still.

Aladdin? The scamp who was always getting her into trouble? Who smelled like monkey, stole things from everyone including her and then blamed said monkey? The boy who had always called her a foolish girl and insulted her almost every time they met?

I shook my head. I had always been jealous, but only because he was human. I had never thought, never believed there had been anything romantic.

But why wouldn’t there be? Everyone said Jasmine was a beautiful girl and Aladdin wasn’t blind. But then what about Jasmine? Did she love him back?

She was sure acting like it.

I felt like roaring and rampaging through the palace, but I couldn’t. Jasmine was there in her rooms. I’d never seen her as fragile as she'd been in these last few days. She needed me and I would be there.

Jasmine came out in a beautiful turquoise gown embroidered with gold to match her large earrings. I stood beside her and we walked into the dining hall. Everyone’s eyes were on us, including the prince, and his advisor. To her credit, Princess Jasmine held her head up high as the court stared at her. You could almost see the ice forming around her like a shield.

Prince Ali stood up when we entered. He went up to greet us. Then he clasped one of her hands and bowed over it, staring at the princess the whole time.

When he stood back up, he said, “Princess, you are so beautiful.”

So, the prince thought he had moves, did he? If only he knew how many other princes had used that exact same trick on her before.

Jasmine just inclined her head. “I am honored, Prince Ali.”

“May I escort you to the table?” he asked.

I snorted. It was only a few steps away.

The princess put a hand on my head to hush me and said, “If you wish it.”

The three of us walked together, me on the right side and him on her left. The prince smelled odd. It was a scent I couldn’t quite place, like oil, monkey, and some sort of spice.

When we were seated, the sultan clapped his hands. “It is so nice to have new people over for dinner. Isn’t it, Jafar?”

“Yes, it is… a pleasure,” The grand vizier said silkily but I saw the look he gave his parrot, Iago, before he turned to the prince and asked, “Prince Ali, where did you say Ababwa was?”

“Oh, it’s pretty far away. I doubt you’re familiar,” the prince said glancing at his advisor.

The man nodded.

I didn’t understand why the prince needed his advisor’s help to answer such a basic question. It looked like Jasmine was right. Prince Ali was an idiot.

“Humor me,” Jafar said. “I am quite knowledgeable about all of Agrabah's neighbors and allies.”

It was true. Though it could be argued, Jasmine was the real head of the foreign policy department at the moment, she mostly stuck to trade. Jafar had been the grand vizier for both domestic and foreign policy ever since Grand Vizier Rikisha's replacement, Qaabil, had died.

Prince Ali was saved from answering by the sultan who huffed, “Enough about that.” The sultan turned to Jasmine and said excitedly, “Prince Ali, is a most accomplished fellow, Jasmine. You should have seen him. He front-flipped from his elephant and landed inside the palace.”

Prince Ali sent Jasmine a cocky grin.

I growled softly while Jasmine kept her expression neutral.

The sultan continued, “And he brought so many gifts from his travels. You should just listen to him talk about his amazing journey here. Come Ali, you must start from the beginning so Jasmine can hear.”

So, the prince began his story. Jasmine pretended to listen, but I could tell by the way she was petting me that she wasn’t paying attention. I was though.

The prince chatted with the enthralled sultan as Jafar glowered and I couldn’t exactly blame the vizier. The prince was spinning a fairy tale about his trip to Agrabah. There was no way half of what he said could be true, but the sultan just smiled and nodded.

After all, the prince was a young human man. He was well-spoken and he was rich, ridiculously rich. That seemed to be enough for the sultan.

As Jasmine stared at her plate, the sultan peppered Prince Ali with questions. All the while the rest of us suffered through hearing his fantastical answers.

Apparently…

Prince Ali was wealthy beyond compare. He owned a zoo of exotic animals including 15 unicorns and a pair of griffons. He could fight off a whole army by himself and was as strong as ten regular men because each day he ran for ten kilometers and did hundreds of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats. He also spoke 28 languages and was an excellent dancer.

I could not roll my eyes enough.

It was a relief when finally, during dessert, the prince broke off from his farcical dialogue to speak directly to Jasmine. “Princess,” Prince Ali said, “you're so quiet tonight. I hope you're not bored.”

Jasmine started. Her hand gripped my head in surprise. I was fairly sure she had not heard a word he’d said for the last hour. All the same, she managed a smile.

“Not at all,” she lied in her court voice. “I have merely been wondering why such a wealthy and powerful noble is interested in me and my small kingdom.” The princess’s eyes sparkled dangerously.

It was a valid question. All eyes fixed onto the prince.

“Because of you, of course," the prince said, “Why else?” He really did look confused by her question.

Princess Jasmine smiled without humor. “You flatter me, but surely you must have other interests.”

“None,” he said leaning towards her.

I couldn’t stop myself from growling as he said, “I already have everything else I could want. The only thing missing is a lovely wife.”

Jasmine pressed her hand on my head and I did my best to control my instincts. Of all the corny lies he could have said, it was enough for me to want to bite off his pants. The only saving grace was Jasmine’s silence. She was apparently stunned by how lame he sounded.

It was Jafar who cut in to continue the conversation. “I am sure your family has different feelings, Prince Ali. Please tell us more about them and your homeland.”

After glancing at his advisor, the prince began to speak of his siblings and Ababwa. Jafar listened intently. While they were talking, the sultan leaned in and hissed to Jasmine, “The prince seems quite taken with you, my dear. Don’t let this one go. He could be a great boon for Agrabah.”

I almost snorted again. A boon indeed, more like a _bu_ ffoon, the prince’s answers had barely been plausible during his talk with the sultan. Now under Jafar's critical eye, Prince Ali seemed to have given up accuracy entirely. He was claiming that Ababwa was an ancient and prosperous trading city even though none of us had ever heard of it before. Even his advisor looked embarrassed for him. Prince Ali and his claims were ridiculous and no amount of apparent wealth or ill-suited compliments to the princess would fix that.

I looked up at Jasmine, hoping to see her draw the same conclusion, but her eyes had gone distant again. For now, it looked like the only man on the princess’s mind was Aladdin and for once, I was glad of it.


	8. Ali’s Smile

Over the next week, Jafar confirmed that Ababwa was a real place and everything the prince claimed including the unicorns and the prestige of Ababwa was true…supposedly. I say Jafar because the sultan believed Prince Ali implicitly and Jasmine… well, she was still in mourning.

She barely noticed Prince Ali. Each day the prince tried to engage her in conversation during meals. He invited her to all sorts of outings and parties. And he bought her gift after gift. None of it meant a thing to her.

Any other time, I think Prince Ali might have had some luck since he was apparently the best person ever…

However, Jasmine was disinterested in her latest suitor. That is until one day when he caught her in the garden. Jasmine was sitting on the fountain. I was lying beside her when Prince Ali approached us.

“Princess Jasmine, I see that you are in the gardens again,” he said as he came closer.

Jasmine rose. “Prince Ali.”

“No, sit back down. I need to talk to you.”

The princess sat.

I watched the prince cautiously.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

Jasmine focused on him and said in an even voice, “No, Prince Ali, I am not mad at you. You may have heard that I am unwell.”

The prince continued to stare at her until we both grew uncomfortable. Finally, he said, “I don’t believe you. You’ve been so out of it, recently. It’s almost as if… you were in mourning.”

I looked at him sharply. What had he heard?

Jasmine too looked surprised, “Yes,” she said slowly, “I am in mourning for a dear friend.”

“What was his name?” the prince asked sitting down next to her.

I growled softly, in warning. I did not like how close he sat next to her or the hungry look in his eyes.

“Aladdin,” she said looking at the fountain. “He was one of my only friends and now…he’s gone.”

The prince put a hand on her knee. “I’m sorry about that.”

It should have been a sincere statement but there was a wide smile on the prince’s face as he said it. He looked like he’d just won his weight in gold.

I felt rage rise within me. How dare he! I got up and snapped at the prince.

The prince shot up. “Hey!” he said, “Watch it.”

I snapped at the prince again almost catching a part of his pant leg. I wasn’t going to have this fool mock Jasmine.

Jasmine put a hand on my head trying to calm me, “Rajah, down.”

I moved away from her hand towards the worthless sack of meat. What sort of person mocked a girl in mourning?

The prince backed away.

“Jasmine?” he asked in alarm.

How dare he say her name!

I roared.

“Rajah!” Jasmine cried out, grabbing the scruff of my neck. “Stop.”

I turned to her then.

Jasmine was confused and she looked…she looked scared of me. There was fear in her eyes. That look drained all the fight out of me.

“Sit!” she commanded.

I sat with my teeth silently bared.

She turned to the prince. “I apologize for that.”

“It’s alright,” the prince said loftily. “I have many beasts myself. They can be moody sometimes. My elephant is especially a handful.”

“Your elephant?” she asked.

The prince nodded, but he kept his eyes on me. “You met him on Tuesday remember?”

There was a pause before she answered, “Yes. You said his name was Albert?”

“His name is Albus, actually. You really _have_ been distracted.”

Jasmine looked away in embarrassment so she didn’t see him smile again as he said, “You must have really loved this Aladdin.”

I growled and tried to take a step forward.

Jasmine tightened her grip and said, “Hush!”

Then she looked up at the prince who now wore an expression of mock concern. “Aladdin was well-loved by many,” she said.

“But you loved him more than most? Was he a suitor of yours?” the prince asked taking a step forward.

The question cut through my anger. I looked up at the princess.

“I…” She shook her head. “I don’t know about that. I always hoped to marry someone…someone else.”

“I see,” the prince said flatly. He’d become oddly serious. “Then maybe that someone will be me.”

I broke from Jasmine’s grip and swiped at the prince with one of my paws.

He leapt back.

I thought it the first night and I knew it now. Prince Ali was not the one for Jasmine. He’d marry her over my dead body.


	9. A Jealous Tiger

After the prince left, Jasmine snapped at me. “Rajah! I can't believe you attacked Prince Ali like that. You should know better.”

I growled at her. I knew plenty.

“Don’t growl at me. All he did was pat me on the knee. That was no reason to try and assault him. He’s the first person to notice that I am in mourning and he offered his condolences. It was very kind of him,” she concluded.

I glared at her. She hadn’t noticed how suspicious it all was: his smile and the gleeful way he had interrogated her. Offering his condolences had not been a mere kindness. It had been some sort of game to him and I refused to let her be a pawn.

She put her hands on her hips. “Rajah. Stop. I can’t have you attacking princes like this. Father’s right. We need to give every prince a chance, including Prince Ali.”

I shook my head.

“I mean it, Rajah. I know you always help me chase off princes, but you can’t do that right now. Alright?”

Before I could answer, she knelt down and began to rub my cheek. I chuffed despite everything. I couldn’t help it. My cheeks were my weak spot.

Jasmine spoke softly as she petted me. “Prince Ali might be different,” she said. “And if he is then this might be my chance to finally have the partner that I need to rule this kingdom. Someone who isn’t a lecher, idiot, or domineering jerk. Someone I could be happy with. So, Please, Rajah.” She looked into my eyes. “Give him a chance. For me?”

I jerked my head away with a snarl. She just didn’t get it.

Jasmine stared at me in surprise and then anger. “This is ridiculous,” she cried, standing up again. “You’re acting like a jealous old man instead of my best friend. Prince Ali is _my_ suitor. Not yours and right now he’s been a better friend than you have.”

Of all the foolish things to say…

“That’s right. I said it. He actually trusts my decision-making skills. Unlike you.”

I took a step back. She’d gone too far. I _did_ trust her decision-making skills. It was her people skills that I tended to question because of stuff like this.

“If it’s so shocking to you, then apologize. Admit you’re wrong and let me figure Prince Ali out for myself.”

No!

I growled without meaning to.

“Fine!” she shouted. “Growl all you like. I’m not going to stand here and listen to you anymore. I’m going to the study. You can join me after you cool off that head of yours and realize I’m right.”

The princess marched away.

I did _not_ cool off. As a human, it had been so much easier to deal with my anger, but as a tiger, sometimes it was nearly impossible. I paced back and forth for hours, trying to use my human reason on my animal rage.

Jasmine thought I was jealous. Of course, I was. I was jealous of all human princes, but I was also right. I was always right when it came to these suitors. None of them were any good. Prince Ali was a lying fool if I ever saw one. He was the latest threat in a long line of questionable princes.

Jasmine was just feeling lonely and vulnerable. She was using the smallest of kindnesses as an excuse to get her hopes up again, but I had seen that smile. Prince Ali was going to disappoint her just like every prince had disappointed her, starting with that drunkard Prince Nadim.


	10. Prince Nadim

I will never forget, the first prince who visited Jasmine after me. It was the only time I had truly failed to protect her.

When I had first transformed into a tiger, I tried everything I could think of to change back into a man. I had prayed and then begged. I had even gotten Jasmine to kiss me like in the tale about the frog. None of it worked.

Worse still, every attempt to tell anyone who I was failed. My body froze at the thought of revealing my identity, no matter how roundabout my efforts were. The whole thing was like a curse and I could not break it.

It had been two years and I had long since been declared dead. No one was looking for me anymore and I knew no one would find me if they did look. I thought my life was at its lowest, but then, on Jasmine’s 13th birthday, letters were sent out to princes to invite them to visit and court the princess.

Prince Nadim was the first to come. He was the second son of a neighboring kingdom. Nadim was a merry sort of man, who liked to drink Arak and smiled a lot. The sultan and his viziers liked him. Everyone was excited at the prospect of a local alliance. Everyone except myself it seemed.

Even the princess seemed to favor Prince Nadim. Of course, the princess by that time was more affable in general, so it made sense that she was more friendly with him than she’d been when I first came. And she enjoyed talking about economic policy with anyone who would listen. Nadim had also known Jasmine’s mother and knew many stories about her. Finally, the prince managed to convince the sultan to allow Jasmine to go on elephant rides outside of the palace.

Really, it was no wonder why she was fond of the man, but it still rankled me. Prince Nadim was nearly 27. He was fat and far too conservative in his beliefs. I knew he’d be a bad match and yet no one else agreed with me.

I was alone in my displeasure, so as the court spent days celebrating the prince’s visit, I spent most of my time away from the prince either in my secret alcove, my rooms, or the gardens.

That was my first mistake.

It was just that I felt more trapped and dead than ever before. I had to give up on being king and now I wouldn’t even get to be the princess’s husband. I was merely a tiger, overlooked by everyone.

Late one night, as I was thinking these pitiful thoughts and making my way to my rooms, I heard the sounds of guards running across the gardens. I looked up and saw them all heading into the palace. I shrugged it off.

That was my second mistake.

The next morning when I went to see the princess for our usual walk. I found that her rooms were empty. I wasn’t immediately concerned. I knew she would be in the palace somewhere.

I checked the dining hall, the study, the court, and then the gardens. Finally, after all those places turned up empty, I followed her scent. It led me to the stables. I vaguely recalled the princess saying she was going out with Prince Nadim the day before. I wondered if I had mixed the days and times up, but then I remembered the guards running around last night.

I felt a twinge of worry. I had hardly run into any guards today. It was strange to have them all busy like this. It would take an emergency to have this many guards missing, an emergency like a lost princess.

I decided to find Prince Nadim. He was easy to track as he always smelled faintly of Arak. Soon, the trail led me to his rooms. He was lying on the bed, fully clothed and hungover.

I stared at his sleeping body. Anger washed over me and I growled. Princess Jasmine was supposed to be with him. He was supposed to protect her.

But no. I realized _I_ was supposed to protect her. I had let my curse and all of the fanfare distract me from that. I was still the princess’s betrothed. Tiger or no tiger, the duty fell to me.

I turned and left the prince in his rooms. I knew there was no more time for moping. I had to find the princess. I might be the only one who could.

I picked up Jasmine’s scent and followed it. It led me outside the palace walls and into the streets of Agrabah. I ignored my unease and searched for the princess.

That day, as I frantically looked for the princess, I vowed to myself over and over that I would never forget my duty again. I needed to protect Jasmine. She was too important to me to do anything less.


	11. Her Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is going to be a little random but, have any of you seen Carpet Ride by Pogo? It's an awesome AMV. I listen to a lot while writing this story.
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> Thank you again for all your support.

I did not calm down from my fight with Jasmine until late that night. I wasn’t sorry about my actions, but I managed to be sorry about how I scared her in the gardens. I knew that I couldn’t let my anger stop me from being a proper protector. I swallowed my pride and decided to do my best to reconcile with her.

It was after dinner so I went to her rooms. But when I got there, I heard voices.

First, Jasmine said. “Is it safe?”

And then Prince Ali answered, “Sure! Do you trust me?”

No!

I panicked and pushed through the doors. I saw Prince Ali help Jasmine step onto a... flying carpet? Magic?

Not good.

The prince saw me first. He gave me that creepy smile before steering the carpet up into the air.

I was at the balcony in moments, but they were already too high to reach. I roared.

Jasmine looked back.

Our eyes met.

I shook my head and whined, begging her not to go.

But there was a twinkle in her eyes, one that spoke of mischief. It was the same look she had worn when she told me that she was going to leave the palace to see Aladdin for the second time. The princess raised her chin up in defiance and then she turned to the prince. I saw her whisper something. A moment later they accelerated into the clouds.

All I could do was watch from the balcony as Jasmine left me behind yet again.


	12. Promises

That first time, when Jasmine was missing and Nadim was sleeping soundly in his bed, I had searched for her like my life depended on it. It had been a nightmare tracking her through the streets of Agrabah. When I had finally found her, she was standing on the other side of a marketplace and talking to a shady street rat, the one and only Aladdin.

That’s when I made my third mistake.

Seeing Jasmine talking with that street rat sent me into a panic. I had barreled through the marketplace to get to her, but I never reached her. Instead, I got captured by the exotic animal merchant. He wanted to skin me for my rare white tiger fur. To save me, Aladdin and Jasmine had mounted a dangerous rescue that still haunts me to this day.

Afterward, I had received a long lecture from Jasmine as I escorted her back to the palace. It was karma I decided, for all the mistakes I had made over the last few days. I hadn’t watched over her when Prince Nadim visited. I had ignored the signs of danger the night before and my last mistake was getting her and myself into trouble due to my rashness.

At the end of the lecture, the princess had said, “I never want you to put yourself in danger like that again. No going to the marketplace, alright?”

I had nodded. It seemed like a good idea and another lesson from this whole ordeal. I thought both of us were a little wiser now.

Even the sultan seemed to have learned something because he was even stricter about Jasmine leaving the palace for any reason after that and we didn’t see another prince for several months. When a prince did finally come, I made sure to stick by the princess’s side.

Eventually, the new prince showed his true colors and I had to chase him off. This began a pattern. I soon seemed to be warding off every prince that visited. They insulted her, endangered her, or lusted after her. Jasmine let me “dismiss” them. I was her protector.

The sultan complained about her behavior at least once a week. He thought Jasmine was being over-cautious and cold with the new princes. He repeatedly told her that not all princes were like Prince Nadim. Jasmine argued that he was being overbearing and heartless, considering what happened to her with the drunken prince. Only Jafar ventured to mediate these arguments, but both father and daughter were adamant.

After prince number six, she turned to me while we were in her rooms and said, “I am so tired of this. I’m only 13. I shouldn’t have to think about marriage yet.”

I nodded. Though 13 was a common age for betrothal, the sultan was being too pushy for my liking.

“I’m a young princess. I should be doing my lessons, or having tea parties, or…” the princess paused. Then her eyes twinkled dangerously.

I whined. I did not like that look. It bespoke of trouble.

“Rajah,” she announced, “I’m going to see Aladdin.”

What!

She raised her chin up. “I promised that I would see him again and a princess should never break a promise.”

I growled at her. She had never told me about this supposed promise before.

She smiled down at me. “You can either keep _your_ promise and help me or do what you did last time.”

I winced. I didn’t want that to happen again. But still, when I agreed not to venture out, I had assumed she would do the same, not go out alone to talk to street rats and other criminals.

“I’m going,” she repeated. “And you can’t stop me.”

We’d see about that. I turned and started to head outside of her rooms towards the nearest guard.

“Rajah, no!” she said once she realized what I was doing.

I kept going. I was determined.

“If you tattle on me, I won’t be able to trust you. I’ll sneak out later,” she warned.

I turned and stared at her. She couldn’t be serious.

“I will,” she said confidently. “My mind is decided. You’re either with me or against me.”

I growled again and headed back towards her. I couldn’t risk it.

Princess Jasmine smiled widely. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “My negotiating skills are getting better every day.”

I rolled my eyes and grumbled.

“So now,” she said excitedly, “the plan.”

I shook my head.

She frowned. “But you agreed,” she protested.

That’s what she thought. I walked over to the small desk in her rooms and sat down. I stared at her fiercely. Now it was time for the _true_ negotiations to begin.

The princess groaned. “Fine…” she said following me to the desk. She sat down and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. Then she got a quill and said, “Name your terms.”

I couldn’t help it. I smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What exactly did Jasmine and Aladdin do to rescue Rajah? That's a story for another time. 
> 
> ;)


	13. Lovesick

That contract was still in Jasmine’s bedroom somewhere. I thought of it as I sat out on the tallest balcony and anxiously watched Jasmine and Prince Ali fly around Agrabah.

Just as the negotiation terms dictated, Jasmine returned before sunrise. It was a relief to see her back on solid ground when I met her in her rooms. However, I soon realized that the carpet ride with Prince Ali had changed the princess. For the first time in weeks, she looked truly happy. She had even been ready to forget our fight. That all would have been great if she hadn’t become obsessed with Prince Ali.

Jasmine went out with the prince nearly every night. They went to parties and explored Agrabah by moonlight. During the day, Prince Ali visited her study. He always had a distraction ready. The only time he did anything remotely useful was when he’d shown Jasmine Ababwa on a map. Besides that, he was constantly pulling Jasmine away from her work. And if by some miracle, Jasmine did find time to do work uninterrupted, she always found a way to mention Prince Ali and his many virtues to me.

She’d say things like:

“Ali is so considerate. He let me show him where Aladdin and I used to hang out and he listened to my stories about Aladdin for hours.”

Or:

“Reading about these rare herbs from Ghama reminds me of when Prince Ali and I visited the Ghamese ambassador last week. Did you know that Prince Ali speaks Ghamese? He knows so many languages.”

And:

“Aren’t these flowers lovely, Rajah? Prince Ali convinced me to join in a festival the other day. We had so much fun dancing in the marketplace. He really is a great dancer. Because of him, we won these flowers as a prize.”

I sat there and listened to it all like a good tiger, even though it made me want to gag.

Even listening to Jasmine talking about Aladdin had been preferable to this. She sounded wistful when she talked about Aladdin, instead of lovesick. However, that duty had long since been taken over by Prince Ali. He loved hearing about Jasmine’s street rat. I suspected it had nothing to do with kindness, attentiveness, tact, or whatever virtue Jasmine gave him that day.

It was just sickening how many supposed virtues Prince Ali was acquiring. He seemed to gain a new one every day. Such talk made it clear that Jasmine was developing strong feelings for the prince, but all I felt was distrust. Every story she told me sounded too good to be true.

I desperately wanted to dissuade Jasmine from her infatuation, but there was no use explaining my misgivings to her. At the end of the day, Jasmine was less cynical than I was. She was more trusting. Right now, communicating my vague suspicions would only lead to more fighting between us.

No. I knew if I wanted to expose the prince, I would need proof.

So, I followed Prince Ali and Jasmine around whenever I could. I listened closely to his tales at dinner. I even searched his rooms but after two weeks of detective work, all I had were a bunch of strange observations.

I still thought he was lying to everyone during our dinners, even though Jafar kept finding support for his claims. And I would never forget Ali’s creepy smiles when Jasmine told him about Aladdin for the first time, but that was just the beginning.

Despite a “thorough” Ababwa education, Prince Ali didn’t know basic geography or the difference between a tax and a tariff. I often found his etiquette to be less than satisfactory and he was far too expressive for anyone who claimed to be raised in a court setting. Even Jasmine had a courtly mask of sorts. Prince Ali only had two modes: “charming” entertainer or toplofty oaf. Neither of those served as a good mask.

Instead, he had another accessory. Prince Ali wore a strange gold crown underneath his turban. I only caught glimpses of it, but it was enough. Who in their right mind needed to wear two hats on their head? Sometimes I even thought I saw him talk to it.

Even Jasmine’s praise of the prince gave me this weird feeling beyond the disgust it caused. It was like I had heard it all before. I got the same feeling when I looked at the prince. He was just so familiar that it gave me a headache just thinking about it.

Also, Prince Ali smelled weird. Both him and his elephant smelled like monkey which was especially strange since most everything from Ababwa, from the actual Persian monkeys to the servants and even the assorted jams he brought as a gift, smelled of spice, metal, oil, and little else.

But then, the Ababwans in general were weird. Besides Ali’s advisor, none of his servants seemed to talk. You never caught them gossiping, sleeping on the job, or even rolling their eyes. And I had a hard time distinguishing one Ababwan from another. Even though I was excellent at remembering faces and names, they all seemed to blend together. It was all very peculiar and made for a frustrating mystery.

Every time I felt like I was close to solving it, I would find myself floundering at the key moment. Whatever realization I was about to have would slip away and I would feel dizzy and sick. I was ill with disappointment, no doubt. I just knew I was missing something. Something that could explain all of this and show Prince Ali as the fraud that he was.

I would not give up. I had vowed not to fail Jasmine ever again. And I refused to be outsmarted by this idiot prince. One of these days, I’d find the proof I needed to figure this all out. Then I’d be able to show Jasmine the prince’s true nature and he’d be discarded like all the rest of her suitors.

I just had to keep looking.


	14. The Wait

And then the unthinkable happened:

It was a half-hour past sunrise and Jasmine still hadn’t returned.

I was looking up at the sky from the highest balcony of the palace. Jasmine had gone on another carpet ride with the prince. Normally, they just rode around Agrabah, but I hadn’t seen them in the sky before I went to bed. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time since it had been a cloudy night. But now it was past sunrise and I still did not see them.

What if they had left the city? What if they were lost? Or captured? Anything could happen when a magic carpet was involved.

I moaned. I could not wait any longer. I didn’t want to report her but I would. I had to. She had been gone for too long.

I should have alerted someone already. No one knew that the prince had taken Jasmine out alone except me. Using the same agreement as always, Jasmine and I had made our usual deal, but now she’d broken the terms.

I headed down to the princess’s vacant rooms and went inside. There was a pile of colored parchment by her vanity. After I picked up the green sheet on top of the pile, I left her rooms. It was time to get help.

I tried the sultan first. I strode past the sleeping guards and entered the chambers no problem. The sultan slept in a crimson bed that could have fit a family of eight. The man was cocooned in the middle of it.

I didn’t want to wake the guards outside. Plus, the parchment made it hard to make sounds because I didn’t want to get my drool on the important words Jasmine had written on it. So, I opted to shake the bed.

The sultan moaned a bit and rolled over.

I growled softly. The parchment fluttered in my mouth.

The sultan and I had had a strained relationship ever since I realized what a useless idiot he was. It was honestly a miracle he hadn’t been deposed yet. Rumors said his rule was protected by ancient magic. On days like these, I believed it. How could this man sleep when his daughter was missing and there was an angry tiger in his bedroom?

Forget it. Subtlety was overrated. I put the parchment down and then I roared.

The guards from outside rushed in. The sultan was up. “Allah almighty,” he cried turning this way and that. “What on earth?”

He spotted me. “Rajah!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

The guards saw me too, of course. They watched me as one of them asked, “Do you require assistance, Your Majesty?”

I glared at them.

The guards swallowed nervously.

The sultan looked between me and the guards. “No. No. You can go back,” he told them. “It’s only my daughter’s tiger.”

The guards did not need to be told twice. They scrambled out the door which gave me some satisfaction. After a few “lessons”, most palace guards understood they did not want to mess with me.

“Now what is it, Rajah?”

I remembered the sultan and turned to face him.

“Is Jasmine having a nightmare?”

I did not acknowledge that silly question. Instead, I grabbed the parchment off the floor with my teeth.

“What’s that you got there?” he cooed in a sweet belittling tone.

I snarled without meaning to.

“Oh my!” the sultan yipped in response.

What did he expect? I was not his pet. Unlike Iago, I did not tolerate the sultan’s coddling. Something I wish the man would remember.

I placed the sheet on the bed. Then I forced myself to stop growling and took a step back.

“I’m just going to take that piece of paper,” he said moving towards the parchment.

I nodded, but he did not seem to notice. He was focused on crawling over his enormous bed. Once his hand grabbed the slightly damp piece of parchment, he scuttled back to the middle of the bed.

“There now,” he said. He gave me a jolly look like that would show that he wasn’t afraid of me, but I could sense otherwise. Even this fool occasionally remembered I was a predator by nature.

I just nodded again.

“Let’s see what this says.”

He held the parchment up to his eyes and read it aloud. There was no need. I knew what the parchment said. I had made Jasmine make a new template when she had started going out with Prince Ali. It read:

_You are receiving this paper because I, Princess Jasmine, have been_

_gone for too long. I went out with Prince Ali. I am riding his magic _

_carpet. I have instructed Rajah to notify someone if I have not _

_returned by sunrise._

Jasmine and I had several of these parchments for different scenarios as part of the contract terms we had drafted years ago. The parchments were all color-coded and I had memorized what each of them said. It had to be that way since my tiger eyes were too unfocused to actually read them. It had seemed like a solid idea when we thought up this contingency plan, but this was the first time I had needed to actually use one of these.

I waited for the sultan’s reaction. He looked up at me and said, “Rajah, this says she’s with Prince Ali.”

Yes, I was aware. Even if I had not memorized the parchment’s words, he had just read it aloud. I was not deaf.

The sultan managed to ignore my dark look and smiled at me as he said, “So, all is well.”

He tossed the parchment back at me. It barely when a half meter before falling onto the bed. “If she’s with the prince,” he said with a yawn, “she’ll be fine. No need to worry, Rajah. We can go back to sleep.”

He laid back down and gathered the covers around him.

I let out a whine. That was it? His daughter had been out all night and could be anywhere and he was just going to go back to sleep? So much for a father’s love.

I climbed onto the bed and grabbed the parchment. Despite the tiger crawling on his bed, the sultan was already fast asleep and snoring.

I glared at him. Did he have no shame?

The sultan seemed to sense me because he mumbled, “Stop moving around, Cyrila. I’m sure Jasmine can wait…”

I snorted. I was not his wife. I was tempted to bite him and show him exactly who I was but I didn’t have time. I had to go notify someone who might actually _do_ something.

I leapt off the bed and dashed out of the sultan’s rooms. It was time to go see the grand vizier.

* * *

Jafar didn’t have guards posted outside his rooms. The dark doors were ominous enough. I knocked and then I attempted to enter.

Before I got inside, a parrot flew out and closed the door.

Iago.

“What do you think you’re doing fish breath?” the parrot jeered. “Jafar is getting his beauty sleep.”

I growled. The parchment nearly flew out of my mouth.

Though he played dumb in front of the court, Iago was never afraid to show his true colors to me. Judging by his high intelligence and odd metallic smell, I assumed that Iago wasn’t just a bird, but I had no idea what he actually was, besides annoying that is.

“What’s that you got in your mouth,” he asked. He flew down to look at the parchment.

I snarled at him. I didn’t like speaking to Iago on the best of days and I had no patience for him now.

“Jasmine’s been out all night, eh? Bet she’s having a good time,” he said, giving me a toothy grin.

Of course, the bird could read. If I didn’t have the parchment in my mouth, I would have snapped at him.

“Let me guess, you wanna bother Jafar about this? What are you, a mamabear? You afraid your precious little princess is finally gonna get some action?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

That was it. I dropped the parchment and lunged.

The parrot avoided me easily. He was high above me and squawking with laughter. “You’re such an easy mark, catboy. It’s great.”

I huffed out a breath and then picked up the parchment sheet. It had officially graduated from being damp to being wet.

Damn it.

Enough of this. I needed to get past the bird to see Jafar. I pushed open the door again.

“Hey!” Iago said. He had finally stopped laughing. He dove down and grabbed the handle with his wings. Somehow with me pushing the other way, he managed to pull the door closed again. “I wasn’t kidding. I ain’t letting you in to see Jafar just ‘cause you’re worried about that pampered princess. Let her have her fun. Maybe she’ll finally lose that stick up her-”

I lunged again as Iago cackled. At that point, the doors swung open.

“Iago, what is going on here?” Grand Vizier Jafar had appeared, fully attired. He sneered down at us.

Iago immediately flew to his side. “Nothing master. This _idiot_ was just leaving.”

Both Jafar and I ignored the parrot. I grabbed the parchment that had fallen onto the floor during our scuffle and presented it to the vizier. He took it using the tips of two fingers. It was still wet, unfortunately.

I watched as Jafar held the sheet up. His ever-present ruby ring gleamed on his finger as he scanned the page. “Prince Ali has a magic carpet?”

I blinked. That’s what he noticed?

“Why was I not informed about this?” he snapped, glaring at me and then Iago.

Neither of us had anything to say. Though it was a bit odd. Prince Ali bragged about so many things at dinner, yet he’d never mentioned he had a magic carpet. It was probably Jasmine’s doing. She probably hadn’t wanted him to reveal how they’d been sneaking out this whole time.

“No matter,” Jafar said, “We must send out the guards to find them at once.”

Finally.

“But Jafar-” Iago protested as Jafar started off.

“Silence Iago,” Jafar said, “We must notify Razoul. There is much work to be done.”

Yes!

I followed Jafar and Iago. The grand vizier strode to the guards’ quarters. Before he opened the doors, Jafar turned and looked down at me. “I do not need an escort, tiger.”

I have a name.

“Leave,” he commanded.

“That’s right,” Iago jeered, “Scram, fish breath.”

Jafar stroked Iago’s back like the bird had been the one to deliver Jasmine’s message.

I glowered at both of them and then I left. It was fine. My job had been done. I had notified the sultan and Jafar. The guards would be sent out.

Now I had to wait. Even if all I wanted to do was go out and search for her myself, this wasn’t like the time with Prince Nadim. There was no trail to follow when your quarry flew kilometers above the city on a magic carpet. And as I had learned before, I was not exactly inconspicuous. So, I paced in the princess’s rooms hoping that she was alright as my mind thought of worse and worse scenarios.

Around mid-morning, I was dead on my feet. Tigers needed a lot of sleep to function, more than a human, but I would not sleep. I wanted to be there for when Jasmine returned. I needed to see her home safe before I could even think of rest. For now, all I could do was pace, worry, and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are officially all caught up to where this story is on fanfiction.net. Now I'll be uploading here and there at basically the same time.
> 
> When I upload...
> 
> So logistics, I don't have a set upload schedule for this story yet. I am considering one, but not until I finish another project. For now, the chapters are edited and published on a whim. 
> 
> So, now that we've reached a stopping point. I am curious how you guys are liking the story. The main reason I decided to cross-post was to receive more feedback. I think the Aladdin fandom is more active on AO3. So please leave a comment and justify this cross-posted fic's existence.


	15. Her Return

It was evening when the doors to Jasmine’s room burst open and Princess Jasmine appeared.

Thank the Mother Goddess. She was alive.

I raced up to her.

“Oh Rajah,” she said taking my head in her hands. “It’s good to see you too...”

I didn’t hear anything else after that. I was too busy looking her over.

No signs of blood or injuries. She really was alright.

Relief washed over me. Thank goodness she was alright. Though now that my initial panic was fading, I saw that she looked better than alright. She looked happy. She was practically glowing.

I took a step back and slid out of her hands.

She was fine, so why hadn’t she returned on time? Why had I spent all day worrying about her? Did she have any idea how close I had been to full-on, people-mauling panic? How many times I had been tempted to go out searching for her myself even though I knew waiting was the best option?

I had had no idea where she was. She could have been lost. Hell, she could have died today. Prince Ali was still very much a stranger. Anything could have happened. Anything.

“Rajah?”

I was growling.

Jasmine tried to reach for my head to calm me.

I took another step back.

“I know,” she said. “I know. I’m horrible.”

Worse than horrible.

“And irresponsible,” she added.

She didn’t know the half of it.

“And if you had your way, I’d be locked in a tower with no doors after what I did.”

I nodded.

“Rajah!” she cried out.

I held up my head high and glared at her. My eyes were slits.

Jasmine was the sole heir to the kingdom. Sometimes I thought she had no idea how important she was to her kingdom. That she had no idea how important she was to me. No idea how I had kept thinking about what I would do if I never saw her again.

And now she was smiling. Oh, she was trying to look serious, but I could see it in her eyes. After feeling useless and being dismissed by the sultan, Jafar, and even Iago, it was too much. Did no one care about what had happened? How dare she look happy after the stunt she pulled. How dare she try to pretend that she hadn’t broken one of the most important promises we had made to each other.

“You’re a cruel cat, you know that?” she teased as she tried to reach for me again.

I avoided her.

She sighed. “Rajah, I really am sorry, but it was an accident. I lost track of time.”

I was unmoved. That was her excuse? She had lost track of time? Sunrise isn’t exactly an easy thing to ignore.

“I know it’s not like me but I was distracted,” she said. “Rajah, come here, I have something to tell you.”

I stayed where I was.

She frowned at me but her eyes were still sparkling. “Fine. You stubborn cat. I’ll just tell you. Prince Ali took me around the world last night. We visited Greece, Egypt, even China. I saw fireworks for the first time.”

I snorted. So? Did she think I cared about what she did with that idiot? I didn’t care if he had shown her Moksha itself. She had been late. Worse than late. She had been gone all day.

“During the fireworks show, he proposed to me.”

Wait…What?

“And I said yes.”

What!

“Father just now approved the match!”

I closed my eyes. Maybe if I kept them closed, I would not have to look at the world. While I was worrying out of my mind, Jasmine was getting engaged to another man, to Prince Ali of all people.

“Rajah?”

She tried to pet me again, but I shook my head, avoiding her touch. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t accept this.

“Isn’t this exciting?” I could sense that she was practically bouncing up and down. “I finally found a prince who isn’t a jerk, a lecher, or a fool.”

Please stop.

“Ali has been wonderful to me. He’s kind and fun and generous. He is always willing to listen to me talk about Aladdin. And he completely understands that I plan to rule Agrabah with him as a prince consort and he’s okay with that. Every time we’re together…”

She moved closer to me. Her eyes were shining. She looked so happy.

I backed away.

“I feel free like I’m not just a princess. He treats me like I am a normal girl. I can’t remember the last time another person has made me this happy.”

I was up against the wall, growling softly, but it was like Jasmine was in her own world. The same one she’d been in for weeks.

Yes, she’d been happier recently, but she’d also been distracted and acting strange. She’d barely noticed anything around the palace. She’d barely noticed me and now she’d done this. She had broken our contract because she was now engaged?

Engaged.

“I’ve felt so alive last night when I rode Carpet with Ali. I saw the world. Places I’d only heard of in books and scrolls, I got to see them. I think…I think I’m in love.” She reached out to me as she said, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

No!

I snapped at her outstretched hand like the tiger I was.

Jasmine pulled back. That dewy-eyed expression was gone. Instead, she stared at me in shock. “You tried to bite me,” she said in a hushed voice.

I looked up at her as my heart beat fast. I _had_ tried to bite her. If she hadn’t pulled her hand away, I would have chopped off her fingers. I would have hurt her, Jasmine, my best friend, my betrothed, except she wasn’t my betrothed anymore.

She was…

“Rajah?” she demanded in a steady voice, but she was holding her hand to her chest and there was fear in her eyes. “Why did you do that?”

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be here and listen to her talk about Prince Ali anymore.

I pushed passed the princess and ran.


	16. The Splash

I didn’t stop running until I arrived at my secret alcove. It was at the exit of a hidden tunnel dug into the east side of the palace. It led to the ocean that lay just beyond the hills behind the palace. The alcove overlooked the sea. A single boat was docked at the edge of it where water lapped up against the stone shore. 

This alcove was here in case the sultan needed to make a quick escape. I had discovered this place nearly five years ago on the worse night of my life…

* * *

It was the eve of Jasmine’s 11th birthday. Something woke me up in the middle of the night. My eyes flew open and I found that my head was covered in some sort of sack. I was instantly lucid. I shouted and struggled, but my mouth had been stuffed and my body was bound in heavy chains. They rattled as I moved.

Somewhere above me, a man grunted. Another man shushed him. The men were carrying me. I was being kidnapped.

My mind quickly started formulating plans and negotiation strategies. I willed myself to relax. I was a prince of Mujulaain. I would be calm. I’d been in worse situations before. I would escape or talk my way out. It would be fine.

Suddenly I was thrust forward and I began falling through the air. At first, I thought they were just throwing me onto the ground but I kept falling and falling. I could feel the air rushing past me. Just when I thought it would never end, there was a splash.

Seawater entered the sack. That’s when I finally began to panic. I kicked and wiggled as I sank down deeper and deeper. It was hopeless, I realized. I was going to die.

But I couldn’t die. Jasmine needed me. I couldn’t abandon that little girl. I couldn’t let her rule the kingdom alone.

When I hit the ocean floor, I began to pray. There was a legend in my kingdom about Durga the Mother Goddess, and the blue amulet I wore around my neck. It was an amulet of protection. As I was tied up and drowning, I figured it was my only hope.

I prayed with all my might. If there was any truth to that story, to my gods. I needed their help now.

I thought I saw a blue light and suddenly the chains fell from my body, but I didn’t have time to marvel at the miracle. I began swimming, thankful that Kadam had taught me how. I was clumsy and it felt like I was barely moving but I kept at it. I refused to give up.

After what felt like hours, I broke the surface and I breathed in the cool night air. The cloth in my mouth was gone and I could see. At some point, it and the sack must have fallen away.

I treaded water and looked around. The ocean stretched out to the east and high above me, I could see the cliffs where they must have dumped me. There was no one there now.

I looked away and began searching for nearby land. I spotted the alcove with its boat and swam to it. Then I climbed onto its shore, breathing heavily.

I felt strange and disoriented. Something was very wrong, but my adrenaline-filled head couldn’t focus on what it was.

Then I saw the tunnel and its staircase leading upward. All else was forgotten. I realized what this alcove was and I guessed where the stone stairs would go. Each step looked unusually huge, but I wasn’t daunted.

I had to get to the princess. I had to make sure that I had been the only one thrown over the edge. I headed towards the steps. I couldn’t walk. Every time I tried, I fell. I decided that I had probably been drugged.

I made do with crawling on all fours. I focused my gaze upward as I climbed the massive steps. When I made it to the top, I nudged the trap door open and collapsed onto the floor of the throne room.

I had tried to keep going after that but I was exhausted. I crawled another meter before I passed out.

I didn’t figure out what had happened until later, but that was the night I turned into a tiger cub. I’d been a tiger ever since.

* * *

Tonight, I stared out at the same ocean that had almost killed me. Sometimes I wondered if it should have. I had almost bitten off the princess’s hand today. I was supposed to protect her and I had done _that_.

But she had broken our promise. She had engaged herself to another man, an inferior man that she actually thought she was in love with.

Ha!

So, he’d taken her on a few carpet rides, given her some gifts, and wasn’t a complete jerk. Was that all it took to win Jasmine’s heart: A human face and three weeks of courtship?

It wasn’t fair. I had been human once. I could have been the one. I _should_ have been the one, not Prince Ali who kept Jasmine out late, told unbelievable stories, and had a sinister smile.

I wished for the hundredth time that I wasn’t a tiger. I squeezed my eyes shut and I prayed to Durga, Damon, Vishnu, and any other god I could think of.

Nothing happened. It was the same as it had always been. The gods had helped me once. They saw no need to help me again. Instead of a flash of light or a heavenly voice, I heard a heavy splash in the distance.


	17. The Rescue

I stared out at the water. My ears twitched. It might have been nothing, but it sounded like the splash had been near the cliffs.

I jumped into the water and began paddling towards the sound. When I got close, I took a deep breath and dunked my head into the water.

The ocean was clear and my tiger eyes were sharp in the darkness. I caught sight of movement at the ocean’s bottom. My stomach lurched. It couldn’t be. I resurfaced and took another deep breath. Then I dived down.

When I saw the white clothes, I feared it was the sultan of all people but as I got closer, I discovered it was none other than Prince Ali. He was covered in chains. It looked like someone was trying to drown him.

Our eyes met.

He squeezed his eyes shut as if to say: not you.

In other circumstances, I would have growled at him. In other circumstances, I would have left the suspicious prince to die. My life would be so much easier if I just let him die. Then Jasmine would be mine again. I wouldn’t have to worry about losing her to this man I hated and couldn’t trust. But…

Jasmine. This was her betrothed.

Her new betrothed, I thought grimly.

She supposedly loved him. Losing her friend, Aladdin, had devasted the princess. What would happen if she lost this man too?

_I can’t remember the last time another person has made me this happy._

Damn it.

I couldn’t let her prince drown. I wouldn’t let her lose another person. So, I open my mouth a fraction and grabbed the chained-up prince. Then I began to swim up.

He was heavy, so heavy that it felt like we weren’t moving. I kicked fiercely and slowly, very slowly, I made headway. It was the second hardest swim of my life.

When we broke the surface, I thanked Durga for her protection yet again. I dragged the prince to the alcove and with some serious maneuvering, I managed to let go of the prince, get my head under him, and lift him onto the raised stone shore.

After that, I wanted to call my job finished and collapse on the ground beside him, but I wasn’t done. I climbed onto the shore. Then I sniffed the prince and listened. He wasn’t breathing. I nudged him.

I did not just rescue this piece of garbage for him to die on me.

I gave him a firm shove to the chest. It was perhaps harder than Kadam would have liked, but it had the right effect. The prince sputtered out some water and opened his eyes. This time when he looked at me, I could see that they held something close to wonder.

“You,” he grunted, “but I thought…”

I ignored him. I didn’t save him for his thanks. I did it for Jasmine.

Speaking of which, now that I knew he wasn’t dead. I needed to go get her. The prince would need help.

I started towards the stairs.

“Where?” he rasped.

I kept going. I’d be back.

He went on talking, but I did not pay him much attention. The last words I heard him say were, “My lamp.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments this story has gotten so far. I can't tell you how much it means to me to hear from you all. Honestly, when I started this story on fanfiction.net I was half-convinced that me and my friend march4fun were the only ones fully enjoying it. I am so glad I began posting here on AO3. You guys have been the best.
> 
> Please keep commenting and I'll keep writing. ;)


	18. Together

Jasmine looked up when I entered her rooms. She was sitting by her vanity in her nightclothes. It looked like she hadn’t gone to sleep yet.

“Rajah,” she said. There was a mixture of uncertainty and hope in her voice. “You’re back.”

Then she noticed my appearance. “What happened?” she asked, coming towards me. “You’re soaking wet.”

I jerk my head towards the door and left back out. The princess followed me.

Jasmine and I were quiet as we walked through the hidden passage. Despite the crisis, I really wanted to talk to her about what had happened earlier tonight. But I couldn’t speak for one thing and even if I could, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

When we reached the alcove, Jasmine gasped and immediately rushed forward. “Prince Ali,” she said as she knelt down beside him. “Are you alright?”

I tried not to roll my eyes. He would be fine.

The prince groaned and moaned as Jasmine fretted. Her concern was palpable. A part of me regretted fishing the prince out. She was already worshipping him again.

After Jasmine assured herself that the prince was alive, she summoned some of the palace guards. They removed the prince’s chains and carried him up to his rooms. Soon, a doctor arrived and took over the whole affair.

I was more than ready to leave when the doctor told us to, but Jasmine insisted on stationing extra guards outside Prince Ali’s rooms. Only after that was done did we finally head back to her rooms. Once we got there, she held the door open for me to come inside.

Hesitantly I accepted her unspoken invitation.

Jasmine let the door close behind us and then she knelt in front of me so that we were at eye level.

“Rajah.” She slowly reached out her hand. I saw how it shook slightly.

I let her touch my cheek.

“Thank you, Rajah,” she said, looking directly into my eyes.

I tried to turn away, but her hand stopped me.

“Thank you,” she repeated.

I huffed. I wasn’t deaf.

“I guess we haven’t exactly been on the same page recently.”

No, we haven’t been.

“I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry I tried to bite you. I was upset and my instincts acted before I could. I didn’t mean it. I…

“I know,” she wrapped me up in a hug. “I know.”

If tigers could cry...

“We’ll have to make adjustments to our contract,” she said in a falsely bright tone. “Special provisions for international travel. And-”

Her voice broke. Jasmine squeezed me tight as she said the next words. “I’m sorry I stayed out so late. I really am. When you...and then you ran off. I realized how worried you must have been. I’m sorry, Rajah.”

I buried my head into her shoulder.

“Also, I realized that you might not like Ali as much as I thought you did.” Though I could feel her crying, the princess still managed to inject a wry note of humor into her tone. It made me want to hold her and never let go, but Jasmine pulled back so that I could see her tear-stained face.

She smiled sadly at me as she said, “I told you that we had to give Prince Ali a chance. I fell in love with him, so I figured you liked Ali too, but… I forgot to ask you what you really thought of him.”

And I was so busy looking for proof. I hadn’t wanted to tell her my thoughts beforehand. I was so sure that it would have just led to another fight.

“Look,” she said, “I really like Ali, but you’re my best friend. I will always value your opinion.” She rubbed my cheek. “Even if I think it’s dead wrong.”

I snorted.

Jasmine’s smile turned genuine. “We will figure something out. Find some sort of middle ground. Just like we always do.”

I nodded. I still hated Ali. I still thought he was suspicious. And the loss of Jasmine’s betrothal hurt, but I hadn’t lost _her_. She was still here, smiling at me and I knew betrothed or not, she _was_ my best friend. I wanted her to be happy and safe above all else, so yes, she was right.

If Ali’s secrets and character weren’t as sinister as I thought and if that idiot made her happy, I would deal with it. Because that’s what friends did. That’s what _we_ did. We compromised and we found a way.

Together.


	19. Jafar’s Farewell

After last night, I thought that that would be enough excitement to last us for a while, but it wasn’t over yet. Prince Ali woke up from his drug-induced slumber the next morning demanding to see Jafar. The servants looked in the usual places, but the grand vizier was nowhere to be found. Even I couldn’t track him.

Instead, my search led me to the sultan’s study where I found a letter that had fallen off the desk. I grabbed the letter with my mouth and presented it to Jasmine who was right behind me.

“Oh!” she said. “This is Jafar’s handwriting.”

I watched as Jasmine started to read the letter. She frowned.

What?

I whined at her.

She looked down at me. Her brow was creased. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ll read it aloud.”

It read:

_To_

_Sultan Hamed Bobolonius II of Agrabah_

_And_

_His Honorable Daughter, Princess Jasmine Bobolonius of Agrabah_

_This is my notice of resignation. For countless years, I have struggled to_

_find what I was missing in this life, and yesterday I found the answer I had_

_been searching for. It was an honor serving you both, but I must bid you_

_and this fair kingdom farewell._

_Good Luck Princess Jasmine. Agrabah will need you._

_Jafar_

She flipped the letter over and said, “Nothing. That’s it. It’s just this and his signature.”

We stared at the letter as she flipped it over again. Even I could see that the other side was blank.

“This doesn’t make any sense. What on earth could he be talking about?”

I had no idea.

We exchanged a worried look. We may not know what Jafar had supposedly found, but one thing was clear:

The grand vizier was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So gasp! Jafar is gone? Yup, that's right. He managed to sneak off before anyone noticed. I guess that's the downside of being rescued by a tiger instead of a genie. I'll give you one guess to what exactly Jafar has "found". He's tagged as Smart Jafar for a reason. Though I'm willing to bet you'll never guess what he plans to do next.  
> ;)  
> I really cannot tell you all how excited I am to get this particular chapter out. So far I've been following the Aladdin plotline at my own pace, but as of this chapter, we are off the rails. :D
> 
> I cannot wait to take you all on this crazy ride of mine.
> 
> And also please keep the comments coming I love hearing from you all.


	20. Paperwork

Jafar’s resignation and flight turned the palace upside down. Department after department started turning to Jasmine for guidance and soon her desk was more paper than wood.

Jasmine and I did our best to take in all the new information, but it all seemed to be bad news.

“Since when are we on bad terms with Shehrabad and Getzistan?” she asked me one day.

I shook my head. We’d negotiated trade agreements with both countries recently without any problems.

“We’re understocked on food,” she said to me another time. “I thought the council had allotted the funds to buy supplies weeks ago.”

I just looked at her. It was a mess. Somehow Jafar had held it all together, but without him, it was falling apart.

After a week of endless work, Prince Ali showed up with a bouquet of flowers. I realized I hadn’t seen him in days. Every day after Jasmine put down her quill for dinner, I just went to my bed and slept.

“Hey,” he said smiling at her. “How about a break? There’s this festival going on in the-”

“No thanks,” Jasmine said, not looking up. She was reading about Agrabah’s crime issues.

“But, Jasmine,” he said, “We haven’t gone out in days and then there’s…” He whispered the next part, “the wedding. I want your opinion on the music.”

I grimaced. Officially, with the crisis of Jafar leaving, the wedding had been postponed. Jasmine had promised we’d address my issues with the prince later and I believed her. And honestly, we had more pressing problems at the moment. Not that Prince Ali understood that.

At first, he had been furious that Jafar had in his words “escaped”. The prince claimed it was the former grand vizier who tried to kill him but that was highly suspect. Prince Ali was hazy on the details behind his kidnapping. He somehow hadn’t seen the faces of the ones who had dumped him into the ocean. And the prince had stubbornly said that he had no idea what Jafar might have “found”. By the end of his talk with Jasmine and the sultan, even Prince Ali seemed unsure of his accusation.

And of course, he would be. Despite the former grand vizier’s flaws, I could scarcely imagine Jafar murdering someone. The idea of it was a bit sickening. After all, Jafar had been the sultan’s most trusted advisor for a reason. His resignation had to be a coincidence.

No. If I had to guess who the true culprit was, I’d say that it was the prince’s main advisor. He and the prince had always had a strange relationship and the advisor had been missing all week because, according to Prince Ali, he had “gone home”.

Because of course, it was perfectly plausible for an advisor to suddenly decide to leave and travel across the desert alone and on foot without any notice.

Regardless of my opinion of the subject, the prince insisted that the sultan and Jasmine find Jafar. They had tried, but it was clear the former grand vizier had left the city. And we didn’t have the resources to track him down at the moment because again we had more pressing problems.

With Prince Ali tantruming, the court panicking, and the kingdom falling to pieces, I decided to give Jasmine a suggestion that I was still not happy about. I told Jasmine to let Prince Ali “secretly” plan their wedding.

Jasmine had been surprised by the idea, but I knew, in theory, it was a good one. Jasmine’s birthday was in a few months. People were expecting a wedding. The idea of a surprise wedding kept people like the sultan off of Jasmine’s back. And it also kept the people of Agrabah happy and distracted while we and the remaining viziers focused on fixing the kingdom. And most importantly to me, having people think that Prince Ali was secretly planning a wedding gave us an out in case, as I was hoping, things didn’t work out. No one could complain about a canceled wedding since no one was supposed to know about it. It would just become another false rumor.

My suggestion worked well. The rumor spread around the kingdom and the court had been suitably enamored with the idea of a surprise wedding, but there was a problem. Jasmine had explained the basic plan to Prince Ali and informed him that the wedding was, in reality, being delayed indefinitely. However, he hadn’t seemed to hear that second part. Instead, he acted like marrying Jasmine before her birthday was a certainty and brought up the wedding in hushed tones every time I had the misfortune of seeing him.

It was beyond annoying. I still did not like to think about how this fool could be ruling Agrabah with the princess one day. So, of course, I was less than pleased to see the prince today.

Thankfully, Jasmine was not in the mood to see him either. “Not right now Ali,” she told him. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“You said that last night and the night before,” he said approaching her desk. “Come on, Jasmine, take a little break from all this paperwork and have some fun with your betrothed.”

I growled softly. Jasmine put a hand on my head to calm me. It didn’t work. Every time he said the word betrothed, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t let this fool drown.

Jasmine interrupted my thoughts by saying, “I can’t. Ali, you know the kingdom is in a crisis. I need to get things under control.”

Prince Ali frowned at her. “You’ve been doing that all week and it’s not even your job. The sultan should be working on this.”

The sultan? Seriously? Where has this idiot prince been?

“I am the princess of Agrabah. It _is_ my job to support my father, the sultan, in the ruling of this kingdom. I can’t frolic around when Agrabah needs me,” she replied.

Even the sultan was frolicking less than usual. He was not smart enough to do much, but he was doing what he could. Recently, he had taken over meal planning for the palace. The results were mixed and I did not regret missing out on smelling the dinners they served, but the effort was there.

The prince tried a different tact. “I get that you think this is important and all, but Jasmine, even royalty needs a break sometimes.”

“And sometimes, royalty needs to work.” She finally put her papers down to give him a pointed look.

I looked at him too. I hadn’t heard Prince Ali offer to help with all this work even once.

“Hey,” he said, “I’ve been working.” He grinned and whispered, “The wedding is going to be awesome. I just found the best band. They’re playing at that festival I mentioned. You should see-”

Jasmine cut him off. “Ali,” the princess said in a tired voice, “I already told you I can’t go. I am sure the band is great, but like I’ve been saying you shouldn’t get carried away with the wedding planning. The wedding is on hold, remember?”

He just winked at her and said in a louder than usual voice, “Of course the wedding is on hold, Princess Jasmine.”

Jasmine’s mouth thinned. “This isn’t a joke, Ali. Just. Stop.”

“Oh, I know it’s not a joke.” His smile turned cocky and then he winked again.

I tried not to groan.

“Ali, really. I need to work,” she said, her voice growing sharp. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“But-”

“Leave,” she snapped.

Ali ignored the command and stood there dumbly.

I got up. If I had to chase him out, I would.

My movement seemed to wake him up. Prince Ali looked between me and Jasmine as if he really was hoping that we were joking.

Jasmine had gone back to reading the papers in her hands.

I snarled at him.

He actually had the nerve to look hurt before he said, “Fine! Spend all day here. I’m going to go have fun.” He slammed the flowers on top of one of the paper stacks and left.

Unbeknownst to him, Jasmine watched him go. When he was gone, she slammed her papers down and swore.

Poor Jasmine. The princess’s hair was coming out of her hairbands. Her eyes were bloodshot from a lack of sleep, and she smelled of stress. My princess was a wreck and it was partially my fault. Ali was bringing the exact kind of drama that I had hoped to avoid with my fake secret wedding idea. It figured that the one time he needed to lie, he completely failed at it.

I stood up and I rubbed my head against Jasmine. She patted my head but her expression didn’t change as she stared at Ali’s abandoned flowers.

“I told him the wedding was going to be postponed because I have too much work,” she began. “Anyone can see I have too much work. And yet he wants me to try and relax?” She sighed. “He just doesn’t get it. I’m surrounded by people who act like they never held a quill before and I’m just one princess. I don’t need a little break. I need more help!”

The princess began to cry.

I nuzzled her harder. My heart broke as I did my best to help and comfort her, but inside I knew it wasn’t nearly enough.

Jasmine was overwhelmed and I couldn’t blame her. The only time, she had ever been close to this busy was when she first took up her court position over four years ago. And that had been work she excelled at.

Currently, Jasmine was riddled with the type of work she struggled with: foreign relations, petty politics, and a whole sleuth of issues that involved a lot of people-pleasing. Diplomacy was my specialty and I usually helped her with this sort of thing, but it was hard conveying all my thoughts and opinions as a tiger. It took time.

And that was one of the many things we did not have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the interesting things about writing in the first person is sometimes me and the POV character have a difference of opinion that I don't get to express in the text. 
> 
> For example, I personally believe Ali can be right. Sometimes people do need a little break. Taking breaks is an important part of being productive. This PSA was brought to you by Unforgettable College Experiences. You call them traumatizing. We call them memorable.
> 
> Anyway, I felt like that was an important fact to bring up: the difference of opinion, not this particular PSA.


	21. Her Promotion

When work ended, I decided to escort Jasmine to dinner. She sat and ate at the table with a fake smile as she petted me absentmindedly. The princess did not notice Prince Ali’s blatant sulking but I did.

I had no pity for him. He had been a complete menace today and Jasmine still had not recovered from their fight. I hated that he had so much power over her moods. It was a struggle not to snarl at him from where I sat watching.

The fool was just so irresponsible and clueless. He had no idea what Jasmine was struggling with. No idea how lucky he was to have such a vibrant and incredible woman in his life. To him, Jasmine was some sort of playmate, but she was so much more than that and if he could not understand that, he would never deserve her company, let alone her hand in marriage.

Throughout dinner, I resisted the urge to harass Prince Ali because unlike him, I knew my place tonight. I was here to guard Jasmine from unwanted company. She had enough on her plate without annoying courtiers further souring her mood.

After dinner, Jasmine and I both went off to bed. I laid in my rooms, exhausted and worried.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how right Jasmine was. She did need more help. The two of us just weren’t enough to deal with all these problems. Eventually, we would need to assemble a team and start delegating more. But finding enough competent and trustworthy people that the princess could work with…that was a tall order and would take time to think through.

I sighed.

Time. Again, I ran into that problem. And I knew even if I found a good team, I’d still have to sell the idea to Jasmine.

I sighed again.

It was hard to talk to Jasmine when she was this stressed or distracted. On a day like today, I was lucky if she understood half of what I said. It was a small miracle that she had grasped my surprise wedding idea earlier this week and that was before things had gotten truly terrible. Right now, the likelihood of me being able to convey a complex idea like a new government structure was near zero.

Jasmine just wasn’t up for it. She’d looked so horrible tonight. I couldn’t help but remember the last time the kingdom had been in pieces and she’d been placed in the middle of it.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the unhappy memories. I needed to get to sleep. Even with our limited communication, Jasmine would need me in the morning.

* * *

I would like to say that Princess Jasmine earned her first court position on merit and pluck alone. However, the reality was much messier.

The crisis began with my disappearance. When I was found missing on Jasmine’s 11th birthday, there had been an uproar. Rumors went wild as weeks passed and no one found any sign of me. Once they determined, I hadn’t left the city, people started talking about me being dead.

I had wanted to shout that I wasn’t dead. I had wanted to tell them that I was a tiger and I was right here. Of course, I could say nothing.

After several months, the men who threw me off the palace cliffs were discovered. They were arrested for their crime. During their trial, they confessed to the kidnapping, my murder, and finally, they revealed who had paid them: Grand Vizier Rikisha.

Many were surprised but I wasn’t. Rikisha and I had never gotten along. I was a man, a foreigner and according to Agrabah tradition, I was set to replace the sultana’s position as the head of foreign policy when Jasmine married me which meant at the very least, I would unseat Rikisha as the ultimate power in that division.

However, Rikisha and I both knew I would do more than that. I had planned to fire her as soon as I got into power. She was a talented grand vizier, but there was no way I could trust her. She was far too power-hungry.

Rikisha was a smart woman. She had probably guessed my plans. Killing me had been a means to buy some time to woo the sultan before Jasmine’s next betrothed arrived.

After Rikisha was put under suspicion, there had been a trial. Rikisha had denied everything as the evidence stacked up against her. She pleaded her innocence all the way up to the guillotine.

When she had died, the foreign policy division was left without a grand vizier. After a lot of squabbling, Qaabil from the domestic policy division was chosen to fill the position. The foreign policy viziers did not take the decision well. There had been a mass exodus from the division ranks.

With over half the division gone, the little princess thought it the perfect time to offer her services. She applied to the positions in foreign policy, listing her qualifications like any other applicant. And she kept applying and receiving rejections as the division her mother had cultivated fell to pieces.

Eventually, the princess appealed to her father and when that didn’t work, she went to Qaabil. Both told her to mind her own business. The princess had been out of options when a knock sounded on her door one afternoon.

Jasmine who had been pacing stopped and stared at the door. I stood up and looked at it too. The princess rarely had visitors to her rooms.

“Who is it?” Jasmine called.

“Grand Vizier Jafar, my princess.”

The princess and I exchanged a look.

“May I come in?” Jafar asked.

I shook my head at her. I found the man unsettling.

She frowned at me.

My shoulders slumped and I gave in with a nod. I knew she was right. We had to let the man in. I went to stand by her so we could face the vizier together.

“Come in,” she said.

Grand Vizier Jafar swung the door open. For just a moment, his dark presence seemed to seep into the pretty pastel room before I blinked and saw that nothing was amiss. Jafar looked the same as usual. He held his snake staff and Iago was perched on his shoulder.

I watched as Jafar’s and Iago’s eyes roamed over the stuffed animals and the pink and purple hangings. This was before Jasmine had redecorated. Back then, she’d had a very cute looking room. I believe the sultana had designed it especially for her, so Iago’s judgmental sneer put me on edge.

“How can I help you, Grand Vizier?” Jasmine said trying to sound brave.

Jafar focused on the princess. “Princess Jasmine,” he intoned. “I assume you are aware of the dire straits this kingdom is in.”

“I am,” Jasmine said shortly.

The man went and explained it to her anyway. Jasmine and I listened. Jafar gave more details than either of us had heard before.

The complaints and eventual mass exodus had not just been about Qaabil being inexperienced and from the wrong division. Nor was it just because he was the first man to enter the female division in over a decade. No. The real issue had been about loyalty and prejudice.

Qaabil was one of the few Agrabah-born nobles with any foreign policy expertise. The majority of the foreign policy viziers were well…foreigners, as was the tradition. Most of them had been immigrants from Shehrabad bought over by the sultana, like Grand Vizier Rikisha and that was the problem.

“The sultan in his wisdom has decided to only trust those loyal to the throne for such an esteemed position as Grand Vizier,” Jafar explained. “Qaabil is nothing, if not loyal. And thus, our government has been purged of those who might do us harm. It was an inspired decision. However, that has left us...understaffed.”

I stared up at the grand vizier trying to ignore my growing headache. Something was bothering me.

“But what exactly do you need me for?” Jasmine asked interrupting my thoughts. “You’re the domestic policy grand vizier, not the foreign policy one. Are you recruiting me to domestic policy so some of your men can transfer over to the other division?”

“No, princess. I am here because of all the people left in this palace, you are the most qualified to run the foreign policy’s trade department.”

I blinked. What?

Jafar continued talking through our stunned silence. “Your knowledge and expertise in tariff optimization is well-known. You are fluent in Shebali. You have worked closely with foreign policy upper management for the last couple of years. And unlike most of the people left in the division, you have some intelligence.”

Whatever effect that praise was supposed to have was ruined by the grand vizier leaning in and leering at the princess.

I growled softly.

Jasmine put a hand on my head and said, “I am glad you think so highly of my abilities, but father and Qaabil would never allow me to-”

“They will,” he said easily, “because I am prepared to sponsor your promotion, personally.”

“Oh!” Jasmine’s eyes grew wide. “That’s-” she began, but he cut her off again.

“Understand, princess, I do not make this offer lightly. Agrabah is in need of funds and our tariff system is in another language and possibly encrypted. If we are to avoid a recession, you will need to show results by the end of March.”

Jasmine paled. Jafar wanted Jasmine to prevent a kingdom-wide recession by decoding the Shebali tariff system, the product of some of the best Shebali minds of our generation and he wanted her to do it in less than three months.

“I am trusting you with this, princess,” he said. “There is no one else.”

I looked up into the seemingly ageless face of the grand vizier. His eyes were intense. Even Iago was looking surprisingly grave. He had been silent this whole time. This was serious.

I glanced at Jasmine. Despite her sickly hue, she seemed determined. After a moment she lifted her chin and said, “I understand. I will do my best.”

“I expect no less.” The man held out his bony gnarled hand. His ruby ring glinted in the light.

I watched as Jasmine shook Jafar’s hand. I felt my stomach twist.

Iago smiled as Jafar said, “Your father’s study has been prepared for you. Congratulations on your promotion, princess.” And with that, the man dropped the little princess’s hand and swept out of the room. We watched as the door fell shut. The sound was louder than it should have been.

Jasmine looked at me and tried to appear happy. “I did it, Rajah. I finally joined the foreign policy division and I am the head of a department. Isn’t that something?”

I just looked at her. I could almost see the cracks in her smile.

“We should go see the study,” she said.

I followed her out of her rooms to the sultan’s study and then the work began.

I will never forget what came next. Jasmine practically lived in that study for the next few months as she fought to unravel and revamp the highly complex and slowly degrading Shehrabad-based tariff system. The princess stayed up too late working, burst into tears at random intervals, and struggled to meet an impossible deadline to save her kingdom.

The court had mocked her. Her father had tried to discourage her. Qaabil had his own problems elsewhere and Jafar had just seemed to watch from the sidelines like a vulture. Jasmine only had me and the few remaining viziers in the trade department for help. And honestly, it had really just been me.

And I did do my best to help. I was able to assist her in identifying the other languages used in the records ranging from Mujulaai to ancient Hindi to even Takandan. I was always there to listen to her letters of inquiry, help her deal with annoying visitors, and do whatever else I could, but in the end, it had mostly been Jasmine.

By the time March arrived, the princess had solved the great puzzle of spreadsheets, foreign records, code words, statistics, and predictive mathematical formulas that dozens of great minds had crafted and reworked over the last decade. With the tariff system once again functional, the Agrabah government had been able to ensure it was taxing goods and collecting funds appropriately again before people noticed the change in prices.

At age 11, Princess Jasmine prevented an economic crisis. She accomplished more in three months than some rulers did in their entire reign. It was then that I recognized Jasmine for the amazing person she was and to this day, there are few people that I respect more.

And yet I knew for how incredible she was, she was in over her head now. Because Jasmine wasn’t solving a complicated decade-long math problem and it wasn’t just the economy that was in trouble. The princess was dealing with the entire Agrabah government system and all the people and problems that came with it. It was too much for one person and we both knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed getting another look into the past. Hopefully, it answered some questions and raised a bunch more.  
> And thank you again for all your comments. It makes writing and publishing these chapters so much more fun.


	22. His Dream

I woke up in the middle of the night. Considering my sleep had been filled with peasant revolts, literally drowning in paperwork, and memories of Jasmine’s first few months in the trade department, I wasn’t surprised.

I stretched and yawned. Then I blinked.

Something was very wrong. My rooms were pitch-black. And I felt...off. I blinked a few more times. My eyes adjusted but it was still unusually dark. What was going on?

I rolled over and decided to get up. My paws touched the palace floor except…they weren’t paws.

I stared down at human hands.

No.

I had to be dreaming.

I held a hand up to my face to examine it. It looked real. I put a finger in my mouth and bit it experimentally. It felt real. I let go and stared at the hand, flexing it. I watched as the fingers moved in and out. Slowly, a feeling of euphoria hit.

I was human. I was human again. I pushed myself off the ground and stood on my two feet for the first time in over four years. My room shrunk as I towered above everything.

I took a step and then another. I needed to find a mirror. I needed to know. I stomped over to the washbasin and looked at my reflection.

It was my face staring back at me. I was still wearing my white nightclothes. The ones I had almost been drowned in.

I held on to the washbasin for support. This was really happening. I was human again.

I began to laugh and tears streamed down my face. It had been so long.

Another day, I would have listened to the inner voice of my father and sucked it up. I was a warrior. I was a prince, but damn it, I was a man. I was a man for the first time in years and I did not want to hold back.

So, I let myself sound like a madman. And I _was_ basically crazy. Being stuck as a tiger for half a decade was insanity. It was unbelievable. What would I tell people? What would I tell Jasmine?

Jasmine. I had to see her. I had to see her right now.

I splashed water onto my face and then I stumbled out of my rooms. Her rooms were only a few meters from mine. With each step, my excitement rose. Soon, I was knocking on her door.

There was no answer. Jasmine was probably asleep.

I did not let that stop me. Nothing could stop me tonight.

I pushed the door open. Jasmine was indeed sleeping but she stirred at the sound of the door opening.

Seeing my princess there made my mouth grow dry. I could not move. I could not speak. Reason had finally caught up to me.

I began to panic. This was a horrible idea. I should go back and figure out what I was supposed to say to her. I should-

“Aneesa?” Jasmine moaned from under the covers. “Go away. I’m not a child. I’ll dress myself…later…”

She shifted in her bed. The covers fell away from her face.

Right as her eyelids began to flutter open, I got a feeling of intense vertigo. The world went blue for a moment. Suddenly, the room was bigger and much brighter.

“Rajah? What are you doing here?” she asked sleepily. “Did Ali drown again?”

I opened my mouth to say no but a moan came out instead.

I tried again. Same result.

“Rajah?” Jasmine asked again, sounding more lucid.

I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. I was human just moments ago.

“What’s wrong?” she held out her hand. “Come here.”

I whined.

I hated the sound.

Jasmine sighed and got up out of bed. She came over and gave me a hug.

“Are you having nightmares too?”

If only it were that simple...

She squeezed me tight. “They aren’t real,” she said and I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. “They are just dreams. They disappear once you wake up.”

I nuzzled into her shoulder. I couldn’t explain to her how much I wished that wasn’t true. I couldn’t tell her that what had just happened was worse than any nightmare. Instead, I wrapped a paw around her and hoped that she was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone,  
> I'm so excited. Things are heating up.  
> XD  
> I'll take your bets now. What's going on here and what does it mean?
> 
> Lastly, fun fact: during the daytime, tigers' vision is alright though not good enough for reading. However, during the nighttime, their vision is about six times better than that of humans.


	23. Secret Advisor

The next night, it happened again. I awoke as a human.

Thank all the gods. It wasn’t just a one-time anomaly.

After a brief celebration, my mind began to think about what I should do next. Immediately, it jumped to Jasmine.

I needed to tell someone about my situation and she was the best person I could go to. The princess knew me as Rajah and Prince Dhiren and could best confirm what I was saying.

That was the rational reason to go to her, but I knew that I just wanted to see her, to talk to her. And I wanted her to see me. I wanted it more than anything. And that was dangerous.

My mother had often preached about the importance of thinking past your desires. Control your emotions or they will control you. It was one of the few things she and my father agreed on. I knew they were right. I had to keep a level head.

I debated with myself for was seemed like hours, but in the end, I decided it was reasonable to go for it. Then I spent another hour thinking about what I should say to her. Unlike last night, it seemed like time was not an issue and yet, I wasn’t certain I should wait until morning.

In fact, I was sure that it was better to go tonight. And I wasn’t just saying that because I was impatient. I needed to communicate my curse to someone as soon as possible. That was it.

And this time I wasn’t going to act like an uncouth idiot. No. This time, I wasn’t going to enter her rooms and gape at her like a fool. I would knock on the door and wait for her to come out. If she answered the door, I would give her the speech that I had thought out.

I wondered what she would say.

Would she believe me? She had to believe me. If she did…

I shook my head. I could feel myself, growing overexcited again and I needed to be realistic. There was no guarantee she would answer. I might have to wait until morning. I would stay calm and collected. I was a prince, I reminded myself.

I was a prince!

I clenched my fists. Damn it. I needed to stop these giddy thoughts. This was serious.

I continued to lecture myself as I opened the door to leave my rooms. However, it turned out it was all for nothing. When I entered the hallway, I spotted a guard walking nearby. The instant before they noticed me, I reverted back into a tiger.

I did not have trouble with giddy thoughts after that.

* * *

On the third night, I got serious. I didn’t bother with Jasmine. I needed to figure out what was going on with my curse.

I went up to a random sleeping guard. I opened my mouth to explain my curse and circumstances and as I feared nothing happened. I felt the usual paralysis I got when I tried to mention my curse.

Eventually, I said a few unrelated words just to make sure I was capable of speech. That was enough to wake the guard. The moment before they opened their eyes, I transformed back into a tiger.

I ended up growling in frustration and scaring the poor guard.

Of course, the curse wasn’t truly broken. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

I returned to my rooms in a fury.

I couldn’t understand it. What was the point of this? What was the point of being human if no one could see me? What was the point if I could not tell anyone about my circumstances?

It didn’t make any sense.

And why now? I’d been a tiger for nearly 5 years. Why were the gods suddenly changing things up? And in such a cruel way? Why was I being subjected to this Sisyphean torture? What had I done to deserve this?

* * *

I was still steaming over my curse the following morning. It made me snappish as I tried to explain to Jasmine for the fourth time what she should add to her letter to Sultan Pasta Al-Dente.

Jasmine shook her head. “Rajah, I have no idea what you’re saying. It’d be so much faster if you could write this letter yourself.”

I snarled and tossed my head in irritation. We both knew I couldn’t do that. I was a tiger of many talents, but writing was not one of them.

“I know. You’re already the smartest tiger in the world. Asking for literacy and penmanship would just be greedy. Let’s just do something else for a while,” she said patting my head to calm me.

But there was no need, an idea had formed in my head.

* * *

That night, instead of going to bed in my rooms, I slept in the sultan’s study. When I awoke as a human, I stood up and I went over to sit at the study desk.

The letter to Al-Dente was on the desk unfinished. I lit a lamp and stared at the page. For a moment, I just sat there with a grin.

There were some benefits to this new existence after all. I could read! I hadn’t read anything in years. My eyesight as a tiger had been too poor.

As I looked over the letter, I started thinking about how to improve it. Because of course, I could write now too.

I took out a fresh piece of paper and got to work.

Hours passed. Around dawn, my amulet began to glow. The blue light filled the study. I shot out of my chair and stepped away from the desk. I moved so quickly that I ended up tripping and falling backward. When I hit the ground, I was a tiger again.

I now knew what happened if I avoided people all night. Another strange rule to follow. I filed that information for later as I went to bed.

* * *

Later that morning, Jasmine and I walked into the sultan’s study to begin work for the day. Jasmine sat down and spotted the pile of completed correspondence on her desk. She stared at it in confusion before she picked up the first letter.

I watched her read it with anticipation.

“This is…” she paused and looked at me, “This looks like something you would cook up. Listen to this.”

She read out my letter.

I practically shone with pride.

“And there’s more,” she said, flipping through the pile. “Who did this?”

She glanced over at me.

I wished I could tell her but the curse wouldn’t let me take credit for this. So, I just shrugged.

Even if she never knew, the look of awe on Jasmine’s face right now was enough to make it worth it.

After we went through all the letters, she looked over at me slyly and asked, “Are you sure that you don’t have anything to do with this?”

I just shrugged again.

She glanced at the pile of letters and said, “I didn’t see a note or signature. It looks like we have a secret advisor on our hands. How whimsical and... appreciated,” she said with a thoughtful smile.

I chuffed happily.

“I’ll need to double-check these to make sure there’s no malicious intent behind them, but they sounded good to me,” she said. “You approve of them as well?”

Of course.

I nodded vigorously.

Jasmine laughed. The sound was beautiful. “I’ll take that a yes.” Her eyes shone and her smile had turned playful. For the first time this week, she looked like herself again.

* * *

I tried to keep those positive feelings with me when I awoke in the study the next night. I resisted the urge to go try to see Jasmine again. I put my anger about the nonsensical rules of my curse aside and I focused on my work.

Because if I could keep making Jasmine as happy as she was this morning, I would sit here every night for the next decade if I had to. After all, I had a promise to keep and a kingdom to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreams do come true!  
> Well...sort of.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed Dhiren's emotional rollercoaster. Though If I were him, I'd be pretty all over the place too.
> 
> Writing this was a bit hectic. Though not as hectic as the next chapter...
> 
> I don't usually use a lot of line breaks but I felt like they were necessary here. I hope it read, okay.


	24. Correspondence

Each night, I worked on Princess Jasmine’s most pressing correspondence and left recommendations for some of Agrabah’s current issues. When I wasn’t doing that, I began to read up on everything I missed over the last half-decade. I looked up new laws, old regulations, and even Jasmine’s calculations which she never read out to me. It was just so good to be able to select reading material for myself instead of depending on Jasmine. I almost felt content.

Jasmine was in a better mood too. Each morning, the princess came into the study with a spring in her step. She eagerly went over each new thing I had worked on. We examined my handiwork together. She continued to check to make sure that there was nothing amiss with her new helper’s work, but of course, there was not. So, she and I approved most of the letters and paperwork her secret advisor sent her.

By the end of two weeks, we’d established a pattern. Then one night, when I sat down to begin working, I found a letter addressed to me.

> _Dear Secret Advisor,_
> 
> _I cannot thank you enough for your aid in these past weeks. I don’t_
> 
> _know who you are but you are literally helping me save Agrabah and_
> 
> _I am thankful._

I smiled. I had already heard her praise from when I was Rajah, but there was something nice about getting a handwritten letter. A letter from Jasmine. It was more than nice. It was…

I decided to read on:

> _But I didn’t write this letter just to praise you. I have some questions_
> 
> _about your new government structure plan._

Ah. I should have known.

Over the last couple of weeks, I started thinking about a long-term solution to our current issues. A power vacuum was created when Jafar left but that had just been a symptom of a larger issue. The kingdom had never really recovered from the death of Jasmine’s mother.

Now that Jafar was gone and me having the ability to write, I figured it was finally the perfect time to create a new government structure. Nothing too drastic. I just wanted to fill positions with competent people and restructure the government to reflect how the kingdom actually functioned now. I had started a list. After many revisions, I had left the list for Jasmine to look over.

As Rajah, I had debated the merits of my ideas with Jasmine. It had been hard to get my point across. It was more nuanced than my usual advice to her and, in the end, I had thought that we would have to continue the argument tomorrow.

Instead, I had this letter in my hands. I kept reading:

> _Now Rajah, my tiger, loves it and I assure you that is a grand_
> 
> _compliment, but I need more convincing. Please explain the_
> 
> _following:_

After that, there was a long list of questions. My smile turned wry. That was my princess alright. I dug into the list. It took a long time. Not because I didn’t know my arguments. No, it was more because I was addressing this letter directly to Jasmine. It felt different from my usual work. My recommendation reports, the closest I’d come to talking to her, were succinct, formal, and impersonal. The letters I wrote for her could be friendly. Sometimes they bordered on sycophantic, but that was because those letters were addressed to other people who responded to that sort of thing. I never addressed her that way. I never addressed her at all and that was on purpose.

I had considered and rejected the idea of writing directly to the princess before, many times. In fact, it was a nightly question. Each time I had remembered that the kingdom was in crisis and Jasmine had enough on her plate. Plus, there had been the question of what to say to her. I couldn’t mention the curse and it seemed wrong to just start up a random conversation with a young betrothed princess who viewed you as a work associate at best.

Even though I agreed with my assessment, I would be lying if I said I was not thrilled to write to her now. I tried to bite down on my eagerness. I reminded myself she had no idea who I was and that this was a simple work request for more information. I did not want to scare her away or cause some sort of fuss because my letter to her became overly-familiar.

I went through several drafts to try to strike the right balance between cordial and professional. The latest version ended with:

> _That concludes my reasoning. I am sure you still might have_
> 
> _questions. Please let me know if you would like me to clarify anything_
> 
> _else. It has been a pleasure working with you princess._
> 
> _Yours Truly,_
> 
> _SA_

There.

I read through my letter again. It was fine, I told myself. I did not usually have this much trouble with writing replies. I was supposed to be good at this. I needed to stop doubting myself. This was the 6th draft, after all. It needed to be fine.

The coming of dawn was better at convincing me to stop than any of my arguments were. I was forced to call this the final draft and leave it on her desk.

Jasmine read my letter to me the next morning, but I did not get to see her full response until that night. It read:

> _Dear SA,_
> 
> _Thank you for providing further clarification. With it in mind, I have_
> 
> _attached my revisions. On the whole, your arguments seem fairly_
> 
> _sound. However, I think some job roles need to be reworked. As for_
> 
> _personnel, I’ll say that I am still unsure about promoting Vizier Gagan._
> 
> _He is quite old for such a stressful position. I worry for his health._

I rolled my eyes. Not every man was as weak as Qaabil. Gagan was only 50. His shrewd eyes spoke of someone who enjoyed a challenge. I was going to have to press my case more aggressively.

The letter continued:

> _And Itriyah is a slimy human being whatever his usefulness. I_
> 
> _cannot in good faith include him in this plan. Please suggest a_
> 
> _substitute._

I smiled. Itriyah was not a pleasant man. It was true, but he was clever and would have made a good Agrabah ambassador to the corrupt Getzistan government. I did not think anyone else at the court was qualified to handle that toxic environment.

Perhaps, I would need to look to one of the merchant guilds instead. It was unorthodox, but I had already recommended a few courtiers who came from lower nobility and upper-class merchant families, so I doubted Jasmine would have an issue with hiring an actual merchant, assuming I could find one. I’d have to think about it. Maybe I’d even have to make a list…

For now, I kept reading. I had to see what else she put in this cover letter.

> _Finally, I must ask. You have been very humble and undemanding so_
> 
> _far, but I was wondering what position, you want in this new_
> 
> _government assuming you’re not in here already, though I don’t think_
> 
> _you are. Surely, after all this work, you expect some kind of reward. Even_
> 
> _I know that much._

My smile dimmed.

> _I know you must have your reasons for working at night, but I would_
> 
> _be honored to have you officially on my staff. SA, you are so brilliant._
> 
> _I would like to meet you and begin working with you face to face._

I stared at the letter and blinked very hard. I really was overemotional these days. It was hardly worthy of a prince of Mujulaain. I took a moment to collect myself before I went on to look at the princess’s revisions.

That, I could easily manage. The princess had a bias towards the foreign policy division and it showed. I left comments on her revised plan to point out she was showing favoritism. However, I did agree with some of the changes she had made. Before the end of the night, I even found a good candidate to be the Agrabah ambassador for Getzistan, a bureaucrat from the textile guild.

After that, there was only one thing left to do. I had to respond to Jasmine’s offer. I wished I could write something like:

> _~~We’ve actually met before and you already know me quite well.~~ _
> 
> _~~We were even betrothed once. My name is Prince Dhiren, but you~~ _
> 
> _~~know me better as Rajah, your tiger. It is a long story, but by the~~ _
> 
> _~~end of this letter, you will know it in full.~~ _

Of course, I couldn’t move my pen to write those words or anything like them. So, instead, I wrote:

> _I am truly flattered by your offer Princess Jasmine but you guessed_
> 
> _correctly. I have my reasons for secrecy. Though I would love to meet_
> 
> _you in person, it is not exactly possible. You must content yourself_
> 
> _with my words. I hope that is enough._
> 
> _Yours truly,_
> 
> _SA_

Jasmine didn’t speak about my rejection the next morning, but I saw her face fall as she read it.

I empathized with her more than she could know, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had learned a long time ago that the curse would not be interfered with.

No letter came that night and my heart sank. I considered writing to her but I decided against it. This was already getting painful as it was.

Later, right before I left the study, I transformed into a tiger again. I opened the door and looked around. It was easy to see the cause. Princess Jasmine was peeping out from a pillar.

“Rajah?” she hissed.

I stared at her.

“Did you see the secret advisor?”

I blinked.

She went up to me to look inside the study.

“They’re gone,” she said. She looked sad. “I thought that maybe I could catch them,” she admitted. “I…well they deserve more than a mere thank you. They’ve been invaluable.”

She sighed. “I really thought they were in there.”

She looked at me hard and for a wild moment, I thought she was making the connection, but then she said, “I suppose you’ve been helping them.”

I shrugged.

She glared at me. “You know who they are, don’t you?”

I shrugged again.

“Not you too,” she said angrily. “There’s finally someone I can talk to and-”

I huffed at her.

“I know I have you, but…” she sighed again. “I just wanted to meet them.”

I nudged her down the hall to her rooms.

“I’m going. I’m going,” she said.

The next night, I was forced to write a short missive.

> _I know you were looking for me princess. Please don’t._
> 
> _SA_

Jasmine sighed when she read it in the morning.

The following night, I got her response. It was more light-hearted than either of us felt. She said:

> _I just wanted to get to know you. I’ve been beyond curious. I_
> 
> _keep thinking:_
> 
> _What sort of person spends their night doing someone else’s work?_

I didn’t even bother to get a fresh sheet. I wrote my response underneath her question:

> _Ah, but princess, don’t you see? I have a similar query. Consider:_
> 
> _What sort of person spends their **day** doing someone else’s work?_

It was an impulsive reply. Far more informal than anything else I had written to her. It was practically insolent, but I didn’t dispose of it. I couldn’t. Things were already broken. I could take a small risk, especially since she had been lighthearted with me first. Surely, this would be alright. Anyway, I wanted to see what she would say.

I nervously read her response the next night:

> _SA, you surprise me. That almost sounded disrespectful. I did_
> 
> _not know you had it in you. And point made. Though I am_
> 
> _curious, I will try to respect your privacy from now on. Day or_
> 
> _night, the work must be done by someone, right? Speaking of_
> 
> _which, what do you make of Al Dente’s response to your first_
> 
> _letter?_

I smiled.

Point made. That’s what she said. Point made.

Jasmine was great at understanding my body language when I was a tiger, but all the growls, chastising looks, and head nods in the world couldn’t compare with human language. How I missed human language.

Point made.

I was still smiling when I pulled out a fresh sheet and began to write my response to Jasmine’s question. This time, I didn’t stress as much on the wording and level of formality. I simply wrote Jasmine a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, this was an unwieldy chapter, but it was fun to write.
> 
> :)
> 
> For this one, I thought about what it must be like to not have to speak for five years and then attempt to talk to someone whose opinion you value highly. It all worked out though...until next time, y'all


	25. Ali’s Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, but this is also the second chapter I published today, so...you know. Also please enjoy the long author's note below?

The princess and I slowly started to establish a new order to the chaos that Jafar had left behind. Every once in a while, we’d slip notes to each other. They were always work-related, but they weren’t always the most constructive of comments. It was nice talking to the princess almost casually and I was becoming accustomed to my new abilities, but then Prince Ali ruined it.

Jasmine came into the study one morning with a contemplative look on her face.

“Rajah,” she said, “You’re not going to believe this.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“You know our secret advisor?”

I nodded. How could I not?

“I found out who it is.”

I stared at her, holding my breath.

“Prince Ali.”

What!

“I know right? I never realized he was so intelligent.”

I gave her a knowing look.

“That’s not what I meant. Prince Ali is plenty smart. It’s just well this…” She shook her head. “It’s almost unbelievable.”

Because it was.

“He said he was worried about me working so hard, so he decided to help out.”

I snorted.

“No really, all this time, he’s been helping us. He was afraid that after our fight I wouldn’t want his help.”

I couldn’t believe she was being this gullible.

“I know you’re not Ali’s biggest fan, but even you can’t argue with the quality of his work,” she said defensively.

The quality of _my_ work.

Then she continued in a more thoughtful tone. “You know, I really underestimated him.”

That was the end of enough. Not getting credit for my work was one thing but getting it stolen by Prince Ali of all people was something else entirely.

However even as I got angry, I smiled. I smiled with all my teeth. I knew it. I knew he was no good. I knew I wasn’t just crazy or jealous. And I finally had him.

* * *

That night after I finished my work, I dipped my quill pen in the ink and wrote:

> _Dear Princess Jasmine,_
> 
> _I cannot tell you who I am, but I can tell you who I am not. Prince Ali_
> 
> _has lied to you. He is not me and if he lied about this, I don’t know_
> 
> _what else he might be hiding. The wedding is imminent, but in light of_
> 
> _this new development, you may want to reconsider that decision. A man_
> 
> _you cannot trust, cannot be a good husband._
> 
> _Yours Truly,_
> 
> _SA_

I looked at the letter with grim satisfaction. See what he made of that, the lying weasel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy this monologue on Aladdin's character flaws:
> 
> You know, when I was between drafts of Rajah's Curse a critical question was: What are Prince Ali's flaws? The Aladdin movie does a great job of masking Aladdin’s flaws. It established Aladdin's goodness early despite the fact the first thing we see him do is steal. Because Aladdin only steals to eat guys and he's good at it. No matter what, people like competent people. It's a fact of life. Plus, Aladdin helps those children in the beginning (in a classic "save the cat" moment). And of course, Aladdin is the mythical "Diamond in the Rough". Contrast this with Flynn Rider who is also a thief. He's not painted as a hero at the beginning of Tangled. That guy goes through an arc to become the much less despicable, Eugene Fitzherbert.
> 
> No, we're always on Aladdin's side except perhaps at the end of A Whole New World where he extends the lie he's told Jasmine, but even then it comes off as him panicking. Even when he reneges on his promise to Genie, we empathize with him because he's "super sorry" about it. The movie is actually quite the work of art that way because Aladdin does have flaws. He’s a lying, manipulative, image-obsessed thief, but that’s not something the viewer or Jasmine really notices. We assume by the end of the movie, Aladdin, being the diamond in the rough that he is, has learned a valuable lesson about lying and will be unambiguously good for the rest of his days.
> 
> LOL!
> 
> No.
> 
> Within like the first half-hour of Aladdin 2, the boy is lying again and not to villains. He lies to Jasmine and the sultan about Iago. It’s actually funny how fast Aladdin descends. Jasmine even lampshades this fact. As for the rest of his flaws, he manipulates people as part of being a clever “hero”, but he doesn’t steal. He treasure hunts. Totally different, I'm sure. And his image? Well if he’s sometimes goaded by his friends to mock Jasmine or ignore her, that’s whatever, right?
> 
> In all seriousness, I really like Aladdin, the character. He is really easy to empathize with. Aladdin is kind, smart, and brave. He just wants to marry the girl he loves and escape the cage of poverty he is trapped in. It's relatable and so are his flaws. To err is human after all. I just find it interesting that Aladdin never really learns and that his flaws are built into his character and to how he succeeds at life in general.


	26. The Fight

The next morning, Jasmine found the letter and frowned. Without saying a word, she picked up another one of my letters on guild law and compared the two. Then she picked up yet another letter.

The princess’s eyes narrowed.

I waited as she continued to scan through a series of letters and notes I had written.

Finally, she said, “Rajah, I need to talk to Prince Ali.”

Jasmine swept out of the study and I padded after her.

Here we go.

We found Prince Ali laying in the gardens, basking in the sun. He stood up when he saw us coming.

“Jasmine,” he said, “you’re-”

The princess didn’t let him finish. “What is this,” she demanded, thrusting the letter in his face.

“A piece of paper?” he said dumbly.

Jasmine looked like she was about to set him and the letter on fire. “This…” she said in an angry hiss, “is a letter from SA telling me that he is not, in fact, you.”

“It’s a forgery,” the prince said quickly. “It has to be.”

I snorted. More lies at a time like this? Really?

This was it. I sat back and watched.

“Ali,” Jasmine’s voice rose, “Don’t you dare lie to me like that.”

“I’m not-”

“I thought it seemed unlikely you were SA, but I believed you. I trusted you, but all of yesterday you were lying through your teeth.”

“Jasmine, I-”

“You must think I’m pretty gullible, to believe such a tall tale.”

“And why is it so unbelievable!” he shot back, suddenly angry. “I’m a prince, aren’t I? I’m smart. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“You’re right,” she sneered. “I had no idea you were capable of such dishonesty.”

“Oh please,” he said derisively. “You’re not exactly honest yourself. You’re the one lying to the kingdom about our wedding. Compare to that, this is nothing.”

Nothing?

“Nothing!” Jasmine cried. “Ali, there’s a huge difference between political maneuvering and lying to your betrothed.”

“Really?” he asked indignantly. “Does your ‘secret admirer’ know that you’re my betrothed?”

“What?” She took a step back. “Secret admirer?”

I glared at him. What was he getting at?

“Your SA,” Ali pressed, “does _he_ know? Because he doesn’t act like you’re a betrothed woman. He’s been getting way too friendly with you recently.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jasmine said in my defense. “SA has always been professional.”

“He’s suspicious, Jasmine. You say he’s an ‘innocent colleague’, but he’s not. You don't know where he came from or who he is. You can’t trust a guy like that. Honestly, I did you a favor by-”

“ _You_ did _me_ a favor?” Jasmine said, her anger flaring up again. “Ali, are you even listening to yourself? SA isn't the untrustworthy one. He didn’t lie to my face.”

“And how would you know?” he shouted. “You don’t even know what his face looks like. You don’t know anything about him.”

“SA might be secretive, but at least he’s not claiming to be someone he’s not. Unlike you!” Jasmine shouted back. In a brittle voice, she continued, “You were supposed to be different. You were supposed to be the one. I was supposed to be able to trust you, but I can’t.” Her voice broke and she turned away from him. “You’re just like every other prince I’ve met.”

Finally!

As Jasmine and Ali stood there, all I could feel was elation. She finally understood what I’d seen weeks ago. Prince Ali was a liar and a fool.

Jasmine started to walk away. I was ready to follow her out of the garden, when Ali said, “Jasmine, Wait.” His voice had changed. It was tender.

To my surprise, she turned back.

He came closer.

I growled in warning. He was too close for my liking.

The prince ignored me and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve just been so worried about us.”

I snorted. More lies. Did he think that was the solution to everything?

“Of course, you can trust me,” he claimed. Then he said, “I love you.”

Ali made his move. It was so quick. I didn’t have time to react immediately. One moment they were standing apart from each other and in the next, Ali had pulled Jasmine close and was kissing her.

A roar escaped my throat. I don’t know where it came from. All I could see was red for a moment. I reared up and shoved the prince back. The force of it sent him flying away from her. He cried out as he landed on his back a few meters away. Instead of laying still and submitting, the fool scrambled back like he could get away.

“Your tiger is crazy, Jasmine.”

There was no response. All I could hear was my growling.

I sculked towards him. He was not getting away. I was going to kill this worthless lying lech. It was my right. I’d saved his life and now I was going to end it.

Something pressed down hard on the top of my head.

It was Jasmine. It had to be Jasmine’s hand.

She probably wanted me to calm down. I had been calm. I had sat quietly through their fight as he insulted me and her, but I was done. I was a tiger. He was a prince and he had assaulted my princess. He had sullied her with his filthy mouth. It was my job to protect her. It was my job to dismiss him, to end him.

He was standing up now, but he would not get away. If he ran, I would chase him. I would pin him down. He would scream and beg. And just when he thought that I would relent, that’s when I’d do it. With just one bite, I would-

“Rajah…” It was like a whisper. “Don’t. Please...”

Jasmine. She still had a hand on my head. Was that her voice that sounded so frail and frightened? Was she hurt? I had forgotten to check.

I managed to look away from the prince and glance up at her. The princess’s face was flushed which made me angry all over again, but there was a look in her eyes.

“Please,” she repeated, her voice stronger.

Jasmine. She was trying to hold it together because she was a princess. And I was a prince. I was a prince, not a tiger. Princes did not viciously murder people in front of ladies. It simply wasn’t done. I had to get a hold of myself.

I forced myself to sit down. I forced myself to stop growling so loudly. I would not attack him until she ordered it. I knew how to behave. When I manage some semblance of control, I nodded at her. I was ready.

Jasmine gave me a hint of a smile, before she faced him. I kept my focus on her. I told myself that he was beneath my notice.

She spoke and her smile vanished. “Why did you do that?” she demanded, “We were arguing and you just…anyone could have seen.”

“I did it because I love you,” he said.

I dug my claws into the ground, but I could not stop myself from growling.

Jasmine’s hand squeezed my head in warning.

“And you love me,” he added quickly. “That’s all that matters. We’re better than this Jasmine. I know we are. Things have been complicated lately and we keep fighting. But I believe we can overcome all that if we just go back to the basics. Let’s put aside all the lies, court intrigue, and your secret advisor, and let’s focus on us again. You and me.” He held out his hand and then the fool had the gall to smile at her.

I began to stand up despite the firm pressure on my head. This was ridiculous. Let’s put aside all the lies? Did he really think she’d buy that? Did he think I would allow it? And how dare this piece of filth leer at her after what he just did.

It was not too late, I told myself. I could pounce from here easily. I could have him on the ground. I could-

In a measured voice, the princess said, “I think we should leave, Rajah.”

Leave? Yes, I decided. Yes. Leaving was good. It was easier than standing and listening to this lech, less bloody too.

“But, Jasmine,” the prince began. He took a step forward, still reaching for her.

Too close.

I snapped at him and he pulled back. As he should. I could bite off his hand. It would be a mercy compared to my earlier thoughts.

“I need to be alone right now,” she announced in a tone that brooked no arguments.

The princess left Prince Ali in the garden. I gave him one last warning snarl and followed after her.

We went to her rooms. She closed the door and dismissed her servants who were cleaning in here. Then she faced me.

“You too, Rajah.”

What?

“Like I said, I need to be alone.”

I stared at her. The princess was still holding on to that expression of calm superiority, but I could tell she was at her limit. She was stiff and her smile was thin as parchment.

Some of my anger gave way to worry. I managed to whine in protest.

“I’ll be alright,” she insisted. Her voice almost sounded steady.

I didn’t believe her. After what just happened, she deserved to be upset. _I_ was certainly upset.

“You can go, Rajah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I gave her a long look, but she didn’t say anything else. She stood there waiting for me to leave so she could cry. My princess could be so proud sometimes. How could I stay angry when she was so close to the edge? I nuzzled her.

“Thanks,” she said petting my head.

A tear fell onto my fur. She sniffled. “Rajah, please...go.”

I nuzzled her one more time and then I left her rooms. As the door closed, I heard Jasmine say in a broken voice, “Allah above what am I going to do?”

I did not have to be in the room to know she was now crying her eyes out and yet here I was, outside. She had never sent me away like this before.

My fury resurfaced. Ali had done this. He had broken Jasmine. He had disappointed her like I knew he would, like every other prince. I was glad she realized it before it was too late, but...

If I thought it would make her happy, I would have finished what I started in the garden. But now that I was calmer, I knew murder was probably not the answer. Jasmine would never forgive me and I wasn’t sure I’d forgive myself if I killed someone solely from anger. Though it was hard to tell in my current state. I still felt more like a beast than a rational man.

I went to my own rooms and paced. I needed to exercise out some of this blood rage and get a hold of myself. She would need me tomorrow. My heart broke thinking about her being alone in her rooms. I would be there for her tomorrow. No matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I really wanted to make the argument...not fair exactly, but I think both sides brought up valid points. At least I hope they did. 
> 
> This chapter went through more revisions than usual cause I wanted to make sure it was just so. After all with this chapter, we've reached the mid-point and we are about to head into one of my favorite arcs of this story. Anyway, see you next time.


	27. Dangerous Questions

The next day, I was pacing outside Jasmine’s bedroom nice and early. After yesterday, I was anxious to see her.

When she slipped out of her door, I practically pounced on her.

“Whoa! Rajah! You’re not a cub anymore,” she said.

I searched her face. Her smile didn’t reach her puffy eyes.

“I look that bad, do I?”

I whined. I had wanted to see her earlier. When I’d woken up last night to go to work, I had been tempted to skip the night and camp out in the hallway outside of her rooms, but I decided against it. I thought that Jasmine would appreciate my work over me just worrying over her. Now, I was not so sure I had made the right choice.

“Well, regardless,” she said, “we have another full day of work. We have to make up for yesterday. Agrabah needs us, Rajah. So, come on, let’s go.” She started walking towards the study.

I made a skeptical sound as I followed her reluctantly. Last night, I had struggled to put Agrabah first. Right now, I could care less about the kingdom. I was worried about her.

Jasmine didn’t say anything in response. She continued to walk at a brisk pace. Then she entered the study and got to work. It was a very productive day. Jasmine was full of new energy, but I was too worried to care. She didn’t mention Prince Ali once and he didn’t come by.

Dinnertime came and I accompanied the tense princess to the dining hall. Both of us geared up to face the prince, but he wasn’t there. The sultan informed us that Prince Ali had taken a ride on his magic carpet and had not yet returned.

The information elicited a sigh from Jasmine. I suppose she was just relieved, but I wasn’t sure. It sounded too sad to be just that.

Over the next few days, when it became clear that Ali was not coming back any time soon, I kept waiting for Jasmine to say something about her argument with the prince, but she said nothing. The whole court still thought the wedding was happening. They assumed the prince was preparing something for the “secret wedding.”

More days passed and there was still no news from the prince. I knew he couldn’t have left for good. His servants were still here, yet no one knew where he had gone. The rumors kept getting wilder and wilder. Every once in a while, I caught glimpses of worry on Jasmine’s face, but the princess seemed determined to not acknowledge Ali’s absence or her fight with him. And when I tried to bring it up, she tersely told me that we had to focus on Agrabah.

It wasn’t untrue. After all, Ali’s departure had not stopped the city’s current crisis. It took time to restructure a government and train new people. Not to mention all the other unresolved issues. The work seemed endless. Jasmine was attacking it with a grim determination that I tried to match. We’d stop corresponding for the most part and I was doing my best to increase my output.

One night it just became too much for me. I was tired and my mind could not focus on the letters in front of me. I needed a break. Really, I had needed a break 3 hours ago, but now I was finally willing to admit it. I stood up. I had to get away from my desk. It was late and I wondered if I should just call it a night, but when I got outside, I decided to go on a walk.

The moon was in the sky as I avoided the guards and wandered out into the gardens. The cypress trees, delicate blossoms, and ornate fountains looked so different under the gaze of my human eyes. Even in the moonlight, the colors seemed to glow. It was beautiful, being human. After my first few nights, I hadn’t really thought much about my new privileges, but right now I wasn’t sure how I could have forgotten.

Then I heard a voice whisper. “Hello?”

I thought it was coming from the direction of the peacock fountain. I stopped walking and I quickly stepped behind a tall tree. I wasn’t in the mood to turn back into a tiger.

“Hello?” the voice was closer. And more importantly, this time I recognized it.

“Jasmine,” I croaked. What was she doing in the gardens at this hour? It was well past midnight.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

I didn’t say anything. This was not how I wanted our first conversation to begin.

She took another step. “I know someone’s there. Prince Ali, is that you?”

“No,” I said before I could stop myself. Damn it.

Jasmine was on the other side of the tree now. She had found me. “Why are you hiding then?”

I swallowed. This was getting ridiculous. I should not be this nervous and yet I was. Jasmine was talking to me. She was right there with only a tree between us.

“Are you my secret advisor?” she asked hesitantly.

There was a breath where even I didn’t know if I would answer. Finally, I responded, “Yes.”

“Oh.” I felt Jasmine take a step back. “I suppose you don’t want me to see you then.”

Yes.

No.

It was complicated.

“It would be for the best,” I rasped. My throat was dry and I couldn’t seem to get enough air.

“I’m just surprised to see or rather hear you, outside. Are you just going for a stroll in the gardens?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. Another short response. I felt like an idiot. What had happened to the eloquent Prince Dhiren who could charm just about anyone?

“Well, I’ll leave you to it then,” she said forlornly. She started to move away.

“Wait!” I said.

She stopped. “Yes?”

I swallowed again. I was already here. I was talking to Jasmine. The conditions were less than ideal, but I would make the best of it. I opened my mouth, focused on not sounding like a complete idiot, and asked, “Why are you out here so late, princess?”

“Oh, no real reason. I just couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told her and I was. Normally she’d come to find me when she couldn’t sleep, but of course, these days I was in the study most nights, and Jasmine…well, she had been keeping her feelings to herself a lot recently. It worried me. I figured she would have cut off the engagement by now. There were political reasons to keep the charade going, the same ones as before, but I didn’t think that was it. I just hoped Jasmine wasn’t falling for Ali’s games again.

The princess interrupted my thoughts, by saying, “It’s not important.”

It took me a moment to remember what we were talking about. She wasn’t sleeping. Right. “I think it’s important,” I said, “Sleep is crucial.” Not that I slept much these days either. It was cat naps for me.

“What?” she asked flippantly. “Are you worried that your princess is tired? That I won’t be able to serve Agrabah the way I should?”

“Yes,” I said, “But no.”

“Yes, but no?” she repeated skeptically.

Perhaps, I should hop out from behind the tree and end this conversation. I was making a mess of this.

“SA?”

“Yes, sorry…I…well.” Pull it together Dhiren. “I mean having the princess of Agrabah be tired is a problem. I’m more worried because…because we’re friends.” Best friends really.

“Friends?” she asked. “How can we be friends when I don’t even know you?”

I cringed. Yes, turning back into a tiger was really starting to seem like a good idea.

“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. Please don’t be insulted. I am just tired and out of sorts.”

“It’s alright,” I lied. Then I added, “I have been quite secretive. I have my reasons, but it doesn’t change that fact.”

“Yes, that’s it. I wasn’t trying to insult you. We work well together and I have really appreciated all your help. I think that government plan of yours is going to work once everyone is settled,” she said, trying to soften the blow. “But all the same, I don’t know you that well.”

An awkward silence began. I was a bit speechless. I knew this wasn’t Jasmine’s fault. It was the curse, but it still hurt. My best friend thought we were strangers.

Jasmine moved from foot to foot. She was waiting for me to say something. I knew what I had to do. I took the plunge and asked. “Well then, what would you like to know? About me? I mean.”

There was another pause.

“That’s a dangerous question,” she said.

“I know,” I said and I was perfectly serious, even though she was not. “But I think it’s worth the risk.” I hoped it was.

“Alright,” she said and I could hear something like enthusiasm in her tone. “I won’t warn you again. I am far too curious at this point.”

I knew that all too well. “I understand. Ask away,” I told her.

I could practically hear her rubbing her hands together. “Okay, the first thing I’d really like to know is your name. What should I call you? I’ve been using the names secret advisor and SA for weeks and you never corrected me. And it didn’t seem right to ask with the whole secrecy thing, but you asked what I wanted to know.”

“I did,” I said. Though the question surprised me. I thought she’d want something much more personal. I thought about it. What would the curse allow me to say? “Well, no one calls me by my first name. You can call me…” I tried to say my real name, Dhiren. My mouth formed the words but nothing happened.

“Hello?”

“Ren.” I bit out the word. “You can call me Ren.”

“Ren,” she repeated.

I nodded and then I realized she couldn’t see me so I said, “Yes. It’s a nickname. My mother used it.” At least that came out.

“So, Ren, are you part of my court?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a noble?”

“Yes.”

“Do I know you?”

“You’re doing it again, princess,” I said with the beginnings of a smile on my face. “We’ve gone over similar information before in our letters. You should ask me something more general, instead of trying to uncover my identity.”

“Those were perfectly innocent questions,” she lied.

“No, they weren’t,” I said in a mock-serious tone. “You’re going to have to be a lot more circumspect than that, if you want to uncover a person’s secrets. I’ve seen children who-”

I stopped. What was I saying? This wasn’t the sort of thing a random noble said to the crown princess. It was the sort of thing a sarcastic tiger might think to himself in the privacy of his own head where Jasmine would never hear.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to…”

At the same time, she said, “I’m sorry. I upset you…”

There was a pause. I kept my big mouth shut, so Jasmine broke the silence, “I can’t seem to stop messing up this conversation. I’m sorry, Ren.”

“I’m no better,” I said.

“How have we been ruling Agrabah this whole time?” Jasmine said. I could hear the smile in her voice.

“We haven’t been,” I said. “The paperwork definitely has the upper hand.”

Jasmine smacked the tree and said, “Ren, that’s horrible.”

I grinned. “But it’s true. You know I keep dreaming that it’s going to devour me one of these days.”

Jasmine laughed.

Beautiful. It had been too long.

After a moment, she sobered and said, “You’re different than I expected.”

“How so?”

“Honestly?” she asked.

“Why not?” I was curious.

“You’re less…”

Regret filled me. Less what? Eloquent? Intelligent? Charming?

“Stuffy.”

“Stuffy? That’s preposterous! I’m not stuffy.” Though that response was not helping my case.

“Your letters are very polite and quite formal most of the time,” she said.

“That’s because most of them are royal correspondence. They’re supposed to sound like that, princess.”

“I know but…”

“But what?”

“I don’t like the style of royal correspondence. I mean even if all I want to say is thank you for visiting my city to discuss trade negotiations. It turns into this whole long-winded monologue.”

I knew what she was talking about. “The Duke of Francia is very particular,” I said defensively.

“I am most honored and forever indebted to you and your indispensable assistance.” She recited in a nasally tone. “Please, I entreat you to visit my fair city again should the whim strike you.”

I cringed. “Okay well…”

“I rest my case,” she said decisively.

I refused to give up. “My writing isn’t always like that,” I argued. “I’ve…” made you laugh plenty of times, but the words got stuck in my mouth and so I said instead, “Surely some of my personal notes weren’t so stuffy as you call it. I bet at least one of them made you laugh.”

Until recent events, Jasmine was more likely to leave me lighthearted notes than I was but, occasionally, I’d leave her a witty comment about a strange letter or my less filtered opinion on some report. I tried not to do it too often because a lot of valuable work time got lost thinking about what to say in those little notes. But still, I had left the notes and they weren’t stuffy.

And I wasn’t stuffy. I was proper. There was a big difference.

“Some were amusing, yes,” Jasmine conceded in a tone of mock forbearance. “So, I suppose I should have guessed.”

“You should have,” I said boldly.

Jasmine let out another short laugh.

Suddenly it didn’t matter whether I was stuffy or not. I’d made her laugh again. This was incredible. Our first meeting wasn’t anything like I had imagined, but we were together. I didn’t want it to end.

“Princess?” I began.

“Call me Jasmine,” she said. “It’s only fair since I don’t know your title.”

I ignored the unspoken question. There was no way I could tell her I was a prince and I was not going to bother to try. Instead, I kept on with what I was trying to say. I spoke her name, “Jasmine,” but the word came out hoarse and wrong. Why was talking suddenly so hard again? I needed to say this. “Do you think…” I was already regretting my word choice, but there’s no second draft when you converse with someone in person. I pressed on, “I would like us to be friends.” I said it a bit too quickly, but it was done now.

It took a few moments for her to answer. In those moments, I felt like I was falling off that cliff. I had been too forward for this whole conversation. I had been rude and a step above idiotic. I was going to be rebuffed just like all those other princes. I had wasted my chance.

“I think I’d like that too,” Jasmine said at last.

Those six words were worth more than any letter I’d ever written to her. It was like standing up for the first time. No, it was better. It felt real. I really was human and I was finally talking to Princess Jasmine.

Before I could say anything, Jasmine added, “Especially, if that means I can ask you more innocent questions.”

I chuckled. “We’ll see,” I said. “I can’t promise I’ll answer every one, but you’re welcome to try.” Who knows? Maybe she’d figure out who I was despite the curse. I was feeling optimistic at the moment.

The princess didn’t need to be told twice. For the rest of the night, she and I talked. The tree separated us, but as we stood together under the same stars, I felt more connected to her than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, Jafar and Ali's advisor and now Ali, so many people are presumably venturing into the desert alone, I wonder what they're up to... 
> 
> But not really. Who cares about them when there are awkward adolescent conversations to read about, right?
> 
> Seriously though, this is one of my favorite chapters of the fic. I have been looking forward to sharing it with you all. I hope you liked it. 
> 
> Please keep leaving comments. I love hearing from you all. I am really curious about what you think of the last chapter, this one, and the ones to come. There are so many mysteries to unravel.
> 
> :)


	28. Blinded

Jasmine and I got into the habit of meeting in the gardens late at night towards the end of my workday. The princess was intent on trying to figure out who I was. She asked me a lot about my family and my history. Some stuff, I couldn’t answer like my birthplace or the names of my family members, but I made up for it by telling stories about my past and things I hadn’t thought of in ages. It was like our whole dynamic changed. Suddenly she was the listener and I was the one talking.

Not that she was a silent listener. It was an effort to get through a story without her interrupting with yet another question. And sometimes, she would be inspired and overtake the conversation with a story of her own. I didn’t mind. Most of these stories were new. I realized I hadn’t known much about her early childhood. Jasmine rarely talked about her mother who was apparently very involved in the young princess’s upbringing. I loved learning more about Jasmine and I loved how excited she was to learn about me.

I probably could have kept talking to her like this for months, but after a week, Jasmine said, “Seriously Ren, what would it take to get you to come out from behind this tree.”

“Princess…” This wasn’t the first time she hinted that she wanted us to move and hint was a generous description.

“Jasmine,” she corrected.

“Jasmine,” I said. “It’s not possible.”

“It’s totally possible,” she argued. “I get that you don’t want me to see you, but…don’t you want to sit down? The fountain is right there and there’s the bench on your side as well.”

“If you prefer to sit, you are welcome to, princess.”

“Oh, hush you. You’re getting that courtly tone in your voice.”

“I am not,” I protested. “I was just trying to be polite.”

“Exactly,” she said.

We were silent as I glared at her through the leaves.

“Well,” she said after a moment, “even if you have no ideas, I do. I could cover my eyes with a piece of cloth. What do you think?”

I considered it. “I don’t know…”

“Come on, Ren. Let’s try it,” she said eagerly. I could imagine her eyes sparkling with excitement.

I couldn’t say no.

* * *

The next night, Princess Jasmine was sitting on the edge of the peacock fountain wearing a blindfold.

I approached the fountain slowly.

Jasmine’s head moved when she heard me coming. “Ren? Is that you?”

“It’s me,” I said. I sat down a respectable distance away.

After a moment, she said, “See. This is much better.”

“Don’t be surprised if I suddenly disappear,” I said eyeing the blindfold skeptically. The blue piece of fabric was hardly comforting.

“I’ll be good,” she promised.

I huffed.

That was even less of a comfort. Since we started meeting at night, she had already tried to catch a glimpse of me once. I had transformed into a tiger and she found a disoriented Rajah sitting in my place. I had hoped that she would put the pieces together and realize what had happened but of course, I should have known it would not be that easy. It never was. Jasmine had only looked confused. Since then she’d been “good”, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Jasmine turned to face me. My heart stopped for a moment. This was the first time that I’d seen her clearly and up close in years. The last time had been when she was nearly 11.

The princess was no longer 11. I finally understood what every man in the palace already knew. Even blindfolded, I could tell that the princess was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Somehow my human eyes saw things, I hadn’t noticed as a tiger, like the way her hair shined in the moonlight or the fullness of her lips. I sat there stunned.

“Ren?” she asked reaching out. “Are you there?”

My hand shot out to grab hers before it smacked me in the face. “I’m here,” I said.

I meant to pull away, but the princess squeezed my hand.

“So, you are real,” she said.

“Of course, I’m real,” I said.

Jasmine shook her head. “That’s a relief. There was always a slight possibility I was crazy and talking to myself. Of course, I might still be crazy, but at least I’m not worried about it anymore.”

“You’re not crazy,” I said firmly. The idea of me being a figment of her imagination was beyond unsettling.

“You’d say that whether I was crazy or not,” Jasmine mused.

Why did she have to say that? Why did it have to make sense? I held her hand firmly and said, “Feel that. I am real, so no more talk of you being crazy.”

“How can I argue with that,” she said playfully.

I was going to press my case for her sanity further, but her smile distracted me. Her lips were so full and such a lovely shade of red? Brown? I wasn’t sure in this lighting.

“You have young hands,” she said interrupting my thoughts.

I blinked. “I _am_ young,” I replied, confused. Even now the princess sometimes said the strangest things.

“I thought you sounded young, but I wasn’t sure if you actually were,” she admitted.

And I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so we just sat there as the fountain water splashed behind us. We were still holding hands. I knew I should let go. Holding onto her hand was foolish, even if it was warm and fit nicely into my own. It wasn’t right for me to do this. I really should let go.

The princess tilted her face towards the sky and said, “You know, this fountain is one of my favorite places in the whole palace. It sounds beautiful. I never noticed that before.”

“The benefits of a blindfold, I suppose,” I said wryly.

“That’s not the only one,” she said

Yes. Definitely not the only one.

“I finally got you to sit down with me,” she said.

Right. That. Yes. That was the benefit and nothing else. The hand holding was not relevant in the least.

“Even if it took forever to convince you,” she said dramatically.

I smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only been a week.”

“Which means I had to ask you like seven times,” she said in the same theatrical tone.

“Four times, math genius,” I corrected her. A few nights this week, I had reluctantly decided I could not afford a break and spent the whole night in the study. The government didn’t fix itself after all.

“That rounds up in base 7.” Jasmine argued, “And regardless, the exact number is insignificant. What matters is that I had to ask you more than once. It’s rare that I have to repeat a request. I’m not used to working so hard outside of politics. Most people just do what I say.”

“Well, you _are_ the princess,” I reminded her.

She sobered. “Yeah,” she said, “for all the good that does me.”

“It does Agrabah plenty of good,” I pointed out.

Jasmine smirked. “You know, Ren. Right now, I don’t want to talk about the good of Agrabah.”

“Right,” I said, feeling dumb. Of course, that wasn’t what she meant.

Jasmine leaned toward me. She was too close. My heart hammered in my chest as she said, “Although, there is something I do want to talk about. Ren, I really need to thank you for being honest with me.”

“There’s no need,” I said. My voice was tight. “You’ve thanked me for my help many times.”

“No, I’m not talking about that. I was talking about Prince Ali.”

Oh.

“I’m so glad you spoke up.”

“It was nothing,” I croaked. I should tell her that she was too close. I could barely think.

“No, it was very important. You see everyone liked Prince Ali and even if they didn’t, most people were too anxious to see me married to care about whether he was a good person. Except for Rajah,” she added. “But Rajah never likes my suitors. I just wanted so badly for Ali to be different. Almost every suitor I meet is a complete disaster and the only two men I was betrothed to have both disappeared. Sometimes I feel cursed and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Princess…” I knew exactly how she felt.

She shook her head. “But that’s not the point. What I am trying to say is that I am glad that you warned me about Prince Ali. I was so deep into wanting him to be the one that I really needed solid evidence to convince me that something was wrong. If you hadn’t provided it, I would have gone through with the engagement. I would have been married to the prince before I discovered his true character.”

That’s when it hit me. “But you are still engaged to him. The court thinks you’re getting married.” I finally did the right thing and pulled my hand away.

Jasmine didn’t seem to notice the difference. She turned away to face the fountain and said, “With Ali being gone for so long, I’m not sure it matters. After a few months, Father declared Prince Dhiren dead, though they never found his body. The same thing will probably happen now with Prince Ali. I hope he is alive and safe somewhere, but he certainly hasn’t bothered to prove it.” Her voice was bitter. “He could be anywhere right now. He could be dying in the desert winter or relaxing in the tropics, but either way, I bet he hasn’t spared a thought about how much his leaving would affect things. He just decided Agrabah was not fun anymore and left without even saying goodbye. He-”

Jasmine stopped talking and jammed a fist into her mouth.

I leaned forward, concerned, and then I saw that she was crying. I did not know what to say. My first instinct was to embrace her, but of course, I couldn’t do that.

Jasmine continued before I could figure out what to do. “I’m sorry. We’re supposed to be talking about you, but instead, here I am crying about Prince Ali,” she said, brushing her tears away.

“It’s alright,” I said. I decided to take one of her hands again. It wasn’t enough. She looked desperately in need of a hug.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “None of this is alright. I can’t keep pretending it is. Every day Rajah looks at me waiting for me to tell Father to cancel the engagement, but I can’t. I can’t, not without seeing him again. As if seeing him again would change anything. I don’t know why I am being so foolish.”

“You’re not foolish,” I argued. “You’re worried about Prince Ali because you’re a good and kind person, even if he’s not. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

If anything, Ali should be ashamed. I sincerely hoped he was actually doing something and not just avoiding Agrabah as a ploy to make Jasmine worry. If he was...

Jasmine sniffled and wiped at her tears some more. She looked just as miserable and humiliated as before and her tears hadn’t stopped.

I had more important things to contemplate than Prince Ali right now. I tried again. “It’s been weeks, Jasmine. You’re allowed to be upset, especially considering the fact that you two were so close.”

“ _Close_?” she said and it came out like a sob. “That’s one word for it. Ren, you’re too nice.”

Gods, had I made it worse? And how was saying close too nice? Did I even want to know?

“Have I insulted you again?” A ghost of a smile graced Jasmine’s lips before it faded away and she said, “I’m sorry, Ren.”

I squeezed her hand tight and I was going to deny her claim, but then in a stroke of genius or possibly idiocy, I realized the opportunity in front of me. Jasmine was crying and I wasn’t getting anywhere with trying to comfort her with words. I couldn’t hold her but, there was another option, a risky option. Durga protect me. I decided to try and lighten the mood.

I sniffed and then I responded in the stuffiest voice I could manage, “Yes! Indeed so. My sensibilities are quite offended, princess.”

Jasmine faced me again, still sniffling. I knew she was wondering if I had lost my mind. Perhaps I had but I thought I saw her mouth quirk into the beginnings of a smile.

I pressed on. “To think of the tomfoolery Agrabah’s fair princess has been getting into. Galivanting about the city. Fraternizing with all sorts at ungodly hours of the night and all with a _man_ no less.” I sniffed to great effect.

Jasmine’s free hand covered her mouth and hopefully a smile.

I kept going. She hadn’t told me to stop. “It boggles the mind that a lady, no, a princess no less, would dream of actually having _fun_. The mere thought of such harlequinades is enough to give me palpitations.”

I thought I heard a suppressed giggle.

I swayed back and though I knew she could not see it, I pressed a hand to my chest and reached out with the other hand in mock distress. “Someone, fetch my fainting couch. I can no longer bear to be lucid in such a heteroclite world.” I whimpered theatrically.

The princess was laughing unimpeded now.

It had worked. Thank the gods.

“Ren!” she breathed between her fits of laughter. “What was that? You’re so ridiculous.” She gave me a playful shove.

I was already leaning back and I wasn’t expecting the sudden push. I lost my balance. With a cry and a splash, I fell into the fountain.

Jasmine got up. “Ren? Are you okay?”

Before I could tell her not to, the princess whipped off her blindfold and found me staring back at her.

Jasmine looked this way and that. “Rajah? Have you seen Ren?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t technically seen myself recently.

She kept looking around. I got myself out of the fountain, went a distance away, and then shook out my fur.

I hated cold water.

“He’s gone,” Jasmine whispered.

I looked up at her.

She sat down at the edge of the fountain. I had worked so hard to make her laugh and now she looked miserable again.

I went to her, but I hesitated. I was still damp.

Jasmine had no such hesitation. She petted my wet fur gently as she stared out at the gardens.

“He disappeared. Just like that,” she told me. “I don’t know what to make of it. I’m not insane, am I? Oh Rajah,” Jasmine said, her voice heavy with emotion, “what have I gotten myself into now?”

I watched the princess but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t after all. I was just a tiger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was another dialogue-heavy chapter, the best kind of chapter in my opinion. However, if these slow burn chapters aren't your cup of tea, fret not. Next chapter, we leave the gardens.


	29. The Magician’s Study

I was leading a blindfolded Jasmine through the halls of the palace, eager to reach our destination. After our disastrous first meeting, I had thought that the princess wouldn’t want to be blindfolded anymore. I was wrong.

Since our misadventure, Jasmine started waiting for me in the gardens with her blindfold in hand four times a week. When I made my presence known, she would tie her blindfold on securely, and then we’d find a place to talk.

The gardens were technically the safest place as we rarely ran into guards there, but Jasmine being Jasmine insisted we go out and explore the entire palace. Exploring is perhaps an over-exaggeration. Few places in the palace were new to us but most nights we made a game to try to find a place the other person didn’t know about.

I had been hard-pressed to find anywhere Jasmine hadn’t seen. She had always been more curious than I was. And of course, the palace was her one and only home, but tonight it was my turn again and I was sure I was going to win our little competition once and for all.

Because tonight, we were going to the magician’s study.

The study was protected by a wall illusion that covered the entrance. As a tiger, my other senses had long ago told me that there was a stairwell behind the spell. I had even gone up the steps, but the door had been locked and I had had no way to get in. My tiger paws and mouth were ill-suited for holding keys and anyone I tried to get to open the door was always stopped by the fake wall.

It wasn’t until Jasmine and I started exploring that I remembered this place again and thought to see if I could get past the illusion as a human. It turned out to be easy. I just had to close my eyes and believe I could walk through the wall.

Blindfolded, Jasmine didn’t even notice the illusion. I shut my eyes and we passed through to the dark stairwell. Then it was just a matter of walking up the staircase and unlocking the door. It was an easy feat for my human hands and Jasmine’s master set of keys. Just a twist of the right key and then we were in.

I scanned the room. Oh yeah. She was going to love it.

“I’ll wait outside and close the door,” I said. “I want you to take the blindfold off and look around.”

Jasmine gave me a coy smile. “You seem pretty confident this time. I hope it’s not another rarely used council room.”

“Not even close,” I shot back. “I’ll be waiting.”

I closed the door and listened. Jasmine didn’t disappoint. I heard her gasp.

I smiled.

“Ren?” she said as moved away from the closed door. “Is this the magician’s study? I thought it was a myth.”

“Not a myth,” I called back, still grinning.

Jasmine began moving around. I could hear her footsteps and her exclamations over each thing. In my mind’s eye, I could imagine what she was doing. First, she walked up the stone tower at the center of the room so that she could inspect the large hourglass and the strange orb the lay suspended above it. Then it sounded like she was looking at the lab table that was covered in vials and beakers.

Her voice became muffled as she went further into the room. I assumed she had started looking at the far wall where a small desk stood surrounded by shelves and drawers. From what I’d seen there were scrolls and all sorts of intriguing-looking objects over there.

There was a creaking sound I couldn’t identify and then after a bit, Jasmine called out to me, “Ren! There’s another room below. Have you seen it already?”

“No,” I shouted back, “Tonight is my first time seeing the study.”

There was a pause.

“Really?” she asked coming back towards the door.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then you should…no, I should put on the blindfold.”

I felt a pang of regret. I shouldn’t have said anything. “No that’s quite alright,” I said. “You finish.”

Hearing her wander about and marvel over everything was more satisfying than exploring it myself.

Jasmine was having none of it though. “I’m done,” she said. “You can come in. This place is amazing. You have to take a closer look.”

I tried one more time. “Jasmine…”

“I’m ready for you. _Come in_ ,” she said. There was a hint of stubbornness in her voice. I knew what that meant.

“Very well. I’m opening the door.” I opened it slowly, half-expecting to be turned into a tiger, but the princess was true to her word. She had her blindfold on.

“Come on,” she said. She grabbed my arm and pulled.

“I’m coming,” I told her. She was acting like a child, but I did understand her eagerness. This place really was something else. It was so different from the rest of the palace. With the dark stone walls and shelves, the odd hanging orb, and the small table covered in glass containers full of colorful liquids, I could easily see a court magician conducting experiments in here.

Jasmine half-pushed/half-followed me to the end of the room. She showed me a hidden doorway among the shelves. I saw that there was another staircase.

“Down the stairs, there’s an even larger study,” she said in a rush.

I looked back and smiled down at her. It really was cute to see her so excited.

“Come on!” Jasmine said, pushing me forward.

“Alright, alright,” I said. She was lucky I had not been closer to the stairs.

I descended the hidden steps. At the bottom, there was indeed another study. It had a similar setup to the one upstairs with a desk, a lab table, and shelves, except it didn’t have the impediment of the stone tower. The desk in here was grand enough for a sultan and piled with scrolls and writing supplies. Around the desk were library shelves that covered most of the walls and stretched all the way to the high ceiling. Finally, there was a lab table in the back. It too was a larger, more impressive version of what was above. Its collection of instruments made the one upstairs look like child’s play.

“See. It’s amazing, right?” Jasmine said. “I thought upstairs was impressive, but this is like a small library.”

“It is,” I said.

“And you didn’t know this room was here?” she asked.

I shook my head and then remembering the blindfold, I said, “No.”

“Then I win again,” she declared triumphantly.

“What?” I turned to look down at her.

She was smiling mischievously.

“You little Sasā,” I told her, “You never would have found this place without me.”

“And you,” she said smugly, “never would have found _this_ place without me and Jafar’s keys.”

“Jafar’s keys?” I asked, forgetting about her ignoble behavior for a moment.

“Yeah. I swapped his set for mine weeks ago after I realized he had more keys than I did,” she said. “It was one of the first things I did after he left.”

“So, you’re a thief now too?”

“I am a princess of many talents,” she said grandiosely.

I shook my head. “Sasā.”

“Like you’re any better,” she said.

We were both smiling.

“Now,” she said pulling me toward the lab table filled with vials, beakers, and artifacts. “Come over and look at this.”

* * *

We explored both rooms. It was a bit of a juggle to make sure that Jasmine was blindfolded or that I was hidden, but we did not let that stop our fun. Towards the end of the night, Jasmine said, “I can’t believe I never knew about this place.”

“Well, the staircase _was_ hidden by an illusion,” I pointed out.

Jasmine looked thoughtful as she mused, “All the same, I bet Jafar knew this place was here. I think he had the only set of keys for these doors. I certainly didn’t have the keys in my master set.”

I frowned. Jafar had had the only set of keys to this place. And now that I thought about it, this place smelled a bit like him. It almost seemed like…

It seemed…

It…

“What is it?” Jasmine asked.

“I don’t…” I was starting to feel sick as my brain tried to complete the thought. This was important, but I was struggling to focus. I was struggling to breathe. My head throbbed with pain and I felt dizzy. I clutched my chest and felt my amulet underneath my shirt. I immediately felt comforted by it.

“Ren?” she said.

I refocused on her. She was covered in a faint blue light. I looked down at my amulet. I could see it glowing through my shirt.

“Princess, I…” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what was happening. Why was my amulet glowing? Was I going to transform? Just like that? It had never happened like this before. What if this was the end? What if I couldn’t change back?

“Ren, you’re scaring me,” Jasmine reached out. “Are you still here?”

I took her hand. “Yes, I’m here. Everything is fine,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Just hold my hand for a bit.” Just in case this is the last time.

The glow intensified. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that this wasn’t the end. There was still so much I wanted to do. I wanted to tease her and make her laugh again. I wanted to somehow tell her who I was. I still had to help her put Agrabah back together again. And gods, the paperwork…

“Ren, are you sure, you’re alright?” Jasmine asked. “Your hand is getting clammy.”

We were still holding hands. I still had hands.

I opened my eyes. There was no more blue light. Thank the Mother Goddess. I was still human.

“Ren?”

I pulled my hand away. “Sorry…Um…yes, I…” I was about to attempt to explain my panic episode when a realization hit me. “Jasmine!”

“Yes, what is it?” she said, on the alert.

“I don’t think Jafar just knew about this place. I think he _was_ the magician and that this was his study.”

Jasmine stared at me. Her mouth opened in an O. “Allah above. I think you’re right.”

We stood there in silence. It felt like stepping into the sunlight. Suddenly, my eyes were open. There had been a reason why slimy Jafar had been the sultan’s most trusted advisor and why no one had questioned him.

“Do you think that’s why everything fell apart when he left?” Jasmine said, interrupting my thoughts.

“Because he was literally holding Agrabah’s government together with magic?” I said. “Probably.”

“Magic,” she said in wonder. “Real magic in Agrabah of all places.”

I could only agree with her. It was so incredible and yet so obvious. How had I never put it together before? Was that magic as well? Just how powerful had Jafar been?

Suddenly, Jasmine said, “That’s why I still liked Jafar after he had Aladdin killed. That had always bothered me.”

I hadn’t been able to blame Jafar for Aladdin’s death either. Even though, it had been his fault.

“But do you know what that means?” she asked.

I did. A man who always seemed innocent could get away with a lot. What other things was Jafar responsible for? I remembered Ali’s accusation. What if he was right? Jafar really could have tried to murder him. And if that were true…maybe Jafar had tried to murder me too. The fact that I had never considered the possibility before was terrifying.

Jasmine began to pace. “Think about it, Ren. Jafar has been around for as long as I can remember. He came from nowhere. He charmed the court and rose to the position of grand vizier so fast, that it’s legend. He even had a staff and a talking bird, basically a familiar, right? I feel so stupid,” she said echoing my thoughts, “How could I not have realized all this before?”

“Magic,” I said moodily.

“Right! Of course!” she said excitedly. “Coming here must have undone the spell.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew the real cause of our sudden enlightenment. I pulled my amulet out from my shirt and gazed at it. The small blue engraved stone no longer glowed. One might even say it looked plain and uninteresting.

The sight of it now made me uneasy. Not for the first time, I wished I could take off this unpredictable blessed gift from the gods and throw it out the nearest window. But of course, it wasn’t that easy. I could no more do that than I could tell Jasmine about my curse.

I sighed as Jasmine continued to move around the room, deep in her own thoughts.

I knew I wasn’t being fair to the amulet. It had served countless kings of Mujulaain and it had saved my life, but it was also the instrument of my curse. And now it had done this. I couldn’t help but wonder what else it _could_ and _would_ do.

Luckily for my sanity, at that moment I realized the room had gone quiet. Jasmine had stopped pacing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, still staring at my amulet.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said.

She was going to have to be more specific. “What doesn’t make sense?”

“If Jafar really was a powerful magician, then why did he settle for grand vizier when he could have been sultan? Or for that matter, why didn’t he become emperor of the desert or something, like the sand witches of old? What was stopping him before? And why has he now left? His letter was irritatingly vague.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted bitterly. “It’s a mystery.” We could add it to the pile.

“Well Ren,” Jasmine began. The tone of her voice immediately caught my attention.

I lifted my head to glance at her and I knew. Beneath her blindfold, her eyes had that look, the one that bespoke trouble. I almost didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Well what, princess? What are you thinking?”

I watched as a smile spread across Jasmine’s face. “I’m thinking,” she said savoring the words, “that we have a mystery to solve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time on culture talk:  
> What does Sasā mean? Well, The name Sasa (or Saša) means princess or beauty in Hungarian, assistant in Japanese, and defender of men in Greek. All great meanings, but here Sasā literally means rabbit. For Americans at least, that's not a great translation. From what I understand of Indian folktales, rabbits are considered to be very clever creatures, kinda like foxes. So fox might be a better translation here despite the fact that foxes eat rabbits.   
> The more you know~
> 
> So in other news, I hope that you liked this chapter and that it has helped to answer some of your questions because we've hit another stopping point folks. I have to do some editing and work on my other project. Plus, NaNoWriMo is coming up, so you probably won't see another chapter of this until December. Then we'll join Jasmine and Rajah for some mystery-solving. I can already tell you we'll be solving some mysteries you haven't even thought of in the next few chapters.
> 
> Look forward to it. In the meantime, leave a comment and help keep me motivated.
> 
> Happy Holidays!


	30. An Answer

The magician’s study became our default meeting spot. It was protected from guards and filled with interesting things. Adding that together with the mystery of Jafar made the study our favorite place to spend the night. However, even with our frequent visits, the study was still full of secrets. After an entire week, it felt like we had barely touched the place.

Tonight, like most nights, Jasmine was downstairs doing her own research, while I was up above reading scrolls on the Durgara faith and gemstone properties. I didn’t think an Agrabah library would have information on my amulet in particular, but I hoped it might have something useful. I knew there should at least be information on my amulet’s gemstone, lapis lazuli. So far though, I had not even found that. There was little order to the scrolls in this place.

I was just about to try a new scroll when Jasmine burst through the door that led to the lower study. She ran over to me with her eyes closed.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, “You forgot your blindfold.”

“I know,” she said, “but you have to read this. I think I figured it out.”

I looked down at the scroll she thrust in my face.

> _There are few magical artifacts more powerful than the genie of the lamp_
> 
> _and unlike many other artifacts, it and the genie of the ring have a fixed_
> 
> _location, the Cave of Wonders._

I frowned. I’d heard tales of the genie of the lamp. Some said he was captured by the first sultan of Agrabah, but I’d never heard of the genie of the ring before. I read on.

> _Any time the lamp or ring are without an owner, one or the other will_
> 
> _teleport back to the cave. The Cave is filled with all sorts of magical_
> 
> _items, a magic carpet, mystical stones, and enchanted gold. However_
> 
> _only the lamp and ring can be easily removed. This elaborate treasury_
> 
> _is said to be part of a wish made by Sultan Hamed Bobolonius I of_
> 
> _Agrabah._

I stared at the scroll. Magic carpet? I felt a headache begin as my eyebrows came together. I decided to ignore it and keep reading. The text went on to explain the properties and rules of the lamp and ring. When I finished reading, I put down the scroll.

Five wishes and the three from the lamp had almost no limitations. It sounded impossible, but then, I was standing in a magic study concealed by an illusion and when sunrise came, I would turn into a white tiger. My definition of impossible was quite flexible at this point.

“Don’t you see?” Jasmine squealed, interrupting my thoughts. I glanced at her. The princess was practically bouncing. I did enjoy seeing her this excited, but I also enjoyed being human and I didn’t want another fountain incident.

“Hold on,” I said. I moved back towards the staircase.

“Where are you going,” she asked.

“To get your blindfold,” I called back.

I went down to the lower study and grabbed it.

“Come on,” she said from behind me.

I nearly jumped. “Jasmine!” I said, turning around. “You scared me.”

Jasmine smirked.

I went up to her and said, “Hold still.” I meant to briskly wrap the cloth around her eyes, but my hand brushed across her skin. I flinched but it was too late. I had felt it. Her skin was so soft. I wanted to reach for her again. I wanted to rest my hand on her cheek. And her hair, I was so close to it and it looked so sleek and shiny. I would do almost anything to comb my fingers through it.

I shook my head. I was being inappropriate. I needed to stop fantasizing about touching the princess and focus on tying the blindfold.

“Are you done yet,” Jasmine said impatiently.

“Not yet,” I said. I told my hands to move and they slowly obeyed. “There.”

“Finally,” Jasmine said, beaming at me.

My own smile was wobbly. I couldn’t stop looking at where I had touched her. I was a lecher just like all the others.

“Ren,” she pressed. “What do you think?”

“Think?” I said dully.

“Yes! About the scroll,” she said eagerly.

“Um…it was interesting,” I ventured.

Jasmine shoved me.

“Hey.”

“Stop being dumb,” she said.

I scowled at her but then I realized she couldn’t see it. “Fine,” I said, “What _you_ think about the scroll?”

“It’s so obvious,” she said and then she started to talk fast as she paced around me. “The reason Jafar, a great magician, came here was because he was looking for the lamp. From what we have gone through so far, it seems like Jafar was a sorcerer and he dwelt in the art of using artifacts for small manipulations. That lamp is the most powerful thing I’ve come across yet and it’d said to be part of my ancestor’s treasury. I mean even I’ve heard of the Cave of Wonders. It’s part of the Agrabah creation myth. Jafar must have come here looking for the lamp to grant some kind of elaborate wish. The reason he left is because he finally found the lamp.”

“It’s possible,” I said.

“Possible? Possible!” Jasmine whipped around. She looked like she wanted to shake me. “Ren, I’m almost certain. Think about it.”

I did. The princess’s theory made some sense, but… “Jasmine, it’s too soon to draw conclusions. We’ve barely started looking.”

“Nonsense!” she declared. “It makes sense that the answer would be one of the first scrolls that I found. It was on the lab workbench which means it was referenced often. So there!” she finished triumphantly.

“Jasmine…”

“What?” she said.

“Let’s say, you’re right.”

“I am,” she said confidently.

“Then answer me this: What did Jafar wish for? I mean if he was going to make some big wish from a genie lamp. Shouldn’t there be evidence?” I asked.

Jasmine deflated a little. “Well…he…I don’t know. The possibilities are almost endless.”

I nodded.

“And I don’t know what he’d want,” Jasmine said talking slower. “As grand vizier he would have all the wealth and resources he could need and as a sorcerer he could have even more. I even found a potion for eternal life earlier. It seemed complicated but surely it would be possible to make it with Agrabah’s resources behind him to find the ingredients.”

“So?” I prompted patiently.

“So, I need to keep looking to support my theory,” she said with a sigh.

I smirked.

Jasmine shoved me again. “Don’t act so smug,” she said.

“I wasn’t…” I began to protest.

“I don’t have to see you to know you’re making a face of some sort.”

I stifled a laugh and said, “It would be hard not to, considering the fact I have a face.”

Jasmine groaned.

“I’ll head back upstairs then?” I said.

“Oh, alright,” she said before murmuring. “You self-righteous pedant.”

I chuckled and returned to my post.

The rest of the night, Jasmine was a bit grumpy, but really, she couldn’t just assume her first answer was the right one. And if I was being honest, I wasn’t in a hurry for this search to end. This new project had been good for Jasmine. My princess was a natural problem-solver and it was nice to work on a problem that didn’t have thousands of lives hanging in the balance. In the magician’s study, she was confident and vibrant. She’d been pretending to be that person since Ali disappeared, but now it didn’t seem like an act anymore.

And of course, there was my curse to think of as well. I kept telling myself not to get my hopes up, but it did me no good. I was too damn upbeat these days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I. Am. Back! 
> 
> Last November was crazy. I worked on not one, but two stories! One of which I'm uploading now. It's a Percy Jackson meta fanfic about a slow-burn romance between a fanboy and a Mary Sue, called Sue's Curse. I must admit it's an adopted story, but I promise if you don't mind swearing it's worth a look.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented since my last upload. I hope you all will continue to do so. It is those comments that made me upload tonight. I missed this story and your feedback so much.
> 
> Hope you are all having a good December. See you later!


	31. The Scroll

The princess and I continued to go to the magician’s study. Jasmine even went with me as Rajah during lunchtime to sneak in some more reading time. We had no new ideas about the mystery of Jafar’s flight, but we did start to understand Jafar and the study more.

Over the course of a few weeks, we found out the orb and hourglass upstairs were used for fortune telling and that Jafar’s clothes were probably made of something called fidelis strands which increase the appearance of trustworthiness. Jafar’s staff had been capable of mind control. Even the ink he used had probably been enchanted with persuasion.

Yesterday we had made our most important discovery yet. We finally figured out how the study was organized. Apparently, this study used an ancient Ghamese system. Jasmine had practically squealed at the discovery because it meant we did not have to search around haphazardly anymore. Jasmine was able to locate more scrolls on the Cave of Wonders and I found some scrolls on lapis lazuli and the Durgara faith.

I was currently sitting at the small desk in the upper study and reading a scroll that described lapis lazuli and a few other blue gemstones. Unfortunately, the section on lapis lazuli had nothing of note.

I sighed. This was the sixth scroll I had read tonight. Neither the Durgara texts nor the scrolls on gemstones had yielded anything useful so far.

For the sake of thoroughness, I quickly began to skim through the rest of the scroll. Then I stopped skimming and slowly reread the passage I had just read.

The scroll began to shake as my hands gripped the wood handles. I knew I should read it again, but I couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t see anything or sense anything beyond my rage. My whole body shook with it.

All I wanted to do was: Find Jasmine. Take her hair. Rip out all those damn ribbons. And shred them with my bare hands, like some sort of monster.

I couldn’t do that so I didn’t move. I sat in my chair, trying to hold myself together like I so often had to do as a tiger. I felt like a tiger now. Snarling with fangs and claws, ready to hurt someone. I didn’t want to listen to reason. Reason said I needed to calm down. It said that getting angry would help no one and that I needed to go inform Jasmine about the scroll.

Each rational argument was like a rain drop trying to douse an inferno. The fact I knew I was being illogical and idiotic only made me angrier. I clenched my hands around the wood handles of the scroll, gritted my teeth, and planted my feet more firmly on the ground as if I could crush my fury into submission.

It did not work. My anger just burned hotter as I sat there like a bomb waiting to go off.

I was still sitting at the small desk when Jasmine came upstairs. Above the sound of my own anger, I heard her say, “Ren, it’s getting late, I think…” she trailed off and suddenly said, “Rajah? Ren, is Rajah in here?”

No.

Yes.

It did not matter. I wanted her gone. Instead, she started buzzing around the study.

“Ren? Ren? Are you there?” she called out coming closer to me. “Come on Ren. Say something. It’s hard enough not being able to see you. I can’t deal with this silence too. Ren?”

The logical part of my mind told me to answer her and that with a few simple words I could get her to leave. But I had passed the point of talking.

I felt a hand on my head. “Found you!” Jasmine cried triumphantly.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Don’t move.

Jasmine patted my head. “Why didn’t you say anything?” She ruffled my hair. “You have nice hair, Ren. Very full.”

The words didn’t mean much to me, but her tone was light and affectionate. The feeling of her hand on my head was so familiar. It brought back a learned behavior that we had spent years cultivating.

_Calm down Rajah. Put your claws away. Stop growling._

I breathed in and out.

_It’s alright. I’m alright. You’re alright._

My anger was beginning to dissipate when she said, “but I suppose I shouldn’t be messing with it. You would say this isn’t proper and whatnot.”

She began to lift her hand away from my head.

No!

Before I could stop myself, my own hand shot out and grabbed hers.

“Ren!” she yelped.

Panic. Like an icy bath.

I let go of her immediately. What was I doing? I hadn’t been thinking. I had scared her. I shouldn’t have-

“Your hand,” she cried. “It’s bleeding!”

“What?” I croaked.

My eyes flew open and I bought my hand to my face so that I could look at it. The princess was right. There were four punctures in my palm. I lifted up my other hand and examined it. It had the same injury which meant my nails, my perfectly groomed blunt nails, had done this. How on earth?

“Ren?” Jasmine said, interrupting my thoughts. “Are you alright?”

I had forgotten that she was still here for a moment. My princess sounded frantic. I had to focus on what mattered. I forced myself to speak. My voice was gruff and foreign to me, but it made the sound, “Yes.”

It wasn’t untrue. I was physically alright. The cuts were probably less deep than they looked and I was only just now registering the pain from them which was a good sign. As far as injuries went, this was pretty minor.

Jasmine wasn’t appeased. “We need to go get a doctor,” she said in a rush. “No wait…I should get supplies or no…we need to clean your hands. Yes! That’s the first step.” She grabbed my forearm. “Come on, Ren. Let’s go to my room. We can wash out your wounds and I’ll help bandage you…somehow.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean no? Ren, now is not the time to be worried about the propriety of being in my room.” Jasmine said trying to pull me from my chair, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I might be capable of thought now, but I did not feel like myself. And there was… _the scroll_. I felt anger flare up in me again.

Above me, Jasmine chided, “Ren, you’re bleeding. You’re in so much pain that you’re speaking in monosyllables. So, yes, you are going to my room and getting medical treatment if it’s the last thing I do.”

“No.” I tamped down on my growing anger. I could not go back there, not with Jasmine standing so close to me.

Jasmine continued speaking as she attempted to move me, but I resisted her easily and I actually made myself tune out her words. I needed to focus on forming a reply she would actually listen to, but my mouth felt like it was full of sand. All I could manage was a rugged, “Princess,” before my voice gave out.

Jasmine didn’t even hear me this time.

Damn it.

I clenched my hands into fists, ignoring the pain it caused. I thought I had gotten over this, but this was worse than that first night I had talked with the princess under those stars. I swallowed and forced myself to breathe in and out.

I had gotten through that night. In the end, Jasmine had heard and accepted me, like she always did. I looked up at the princess now. Even now, with her fighting to move me and insulting me, she was as lovely as ever.

My princess deserved better. She expected better. To her, I was never just an animal. I was her friend. And I was a prince.

I swallowed again. My mouth felt a little better. I felt calmer as I looked into her face. I was Prince Alagan Dhiren Rajaram. I was not an animal. I would not be ruled by anger, however justified. I would speak clearly and concisely like the noble I was and I _would_ tell the princess about the scroll.

“Princess Jasmine,” I tried to say in a commanding voice.

The result was at least audible because this time the princess heard me. She stopped pulling my arm for a moment and said, “What is it, Ren?”

I swallowed again and took in another deep breath. I could do this. I just had to put aside my anger for a bit. “Your headpiece.”

“My headpiece?” she repeated in confusion. One of Jasmine’s hands released my arm and caressed the familiar sea blue stone. Her touch was gentle, almost reverent.

That damn headpiece was one of her favorite possessions. The only time, she ever went without it was when she had visited Aladdin. Otherwise, it was a permanent accessory. She wore it proudly on her head or kept it on her person as a good luck charm.

She had done this ever since she had first earned the headpiece when she was eleven years old. The thing was her trophy for saving Agrabah’s economy, given to her during a huge ceremony by Jafar, himself.

He had given it to her when she was _eleven!_

I clenched my fists even tighter. I was losing it again.

_Calm down._

I breathed in and out.

_Put your claws away._

I opened my hands.

_Stop growling._

I focused on Jasmine. I looked at her blindfold and imagined that I could see her eyes. Then I said in a voice that still did not sound like my own, “Your headpiece is cursed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... how's that for an uncovered mystery?
> 
> ;)


	32. Pleasant Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this chapter and the long author's note/hot take below.

> _Galamight is often mistaken for turquoise in its finished state. In Egypt, it_
> 
> _is referred to as Neshmat or Heseg and it can be used for clarity of mind,_
> 
> _increased communication with a lover and for balancing the feminine_
> 
> _and masculine inner selves. However, this gemstone earns its common_
> 
> _name from its association with the Galafem warriors. The lady warriors_
> 
> _combine Galamight with spun Galafem gold in a Herculean knot to_
> 
> _create Chastity Belts. The belts as the name suggests are used to teach_
> 
> _chastity and temperance. A belt grants luck in battle, but its true power is_
> 
> _the adverse effect that it has on men. It causes them to lose their inner_
> 
> _strength and mental clarity over time. This effect is magnified for men_
> 
> _that the wearer finds worthy of the marriage bed. Thus, the wearer learns_
> 
> _the worse men have to offer and is no longer tempted by their wiles._

Jasmine finished reading the passage aloud. Then she lifted up the scroll and placed it at eye level for me. “Here’s a picture of it.”

It was hard to make out the details or the exact shade of blue now that I was a tiger, but I already knew it was a perfect match.

The sight of it ignited my rage again. I snarled at the page and had to dig my claws into the floor to stop myself from ripping the scroll into shreds.

“Yeah,” she said darkly as she returned the scroll to the small desk.

Jasmine placed a hand on my head and began to stroke my fur. My snarling decreased a bit, partially out of gratitude. I had never truly realized just how effective her touch was at calming me. Even as a human, I had felt it.

Though I should not have needed the help. My behavior earlier had been disgraceful, uncivilized, and a bit disturbing.

“I completely agree,” Jasmine said.

What?

“That’s why we’re not going to father’s study today. I’m leaving my headpiece here and we’re going to spend the day at court.”

Oh right. That. Of course, she wasn’t talking about my earlier loss of temper. Jasmine had no idea how feral I had been before and hopefully she would never need to know because _that_ wasn’t happening again. It was bad enough feeling like that as a tiger. Feeling that level of rage as a human was simply unacceptable.

Instead, the princess was still talking about what actually mattered: the scroll. After I had finally told the princess her headpiece was cursed earlier tonight, I had insisted that she read the scroll for herself before we dealt with my injured hands. It had taken her no time to see that the gem in the illustration matched the one on her head.

She had ripped her headpiece off and for a moment, I thought that she was going to smash it against the desk, but instead she calmly placed her headpiece down and retied her blindfold. Then she turned to me and said in a low voice crackling with suppressed anger that we needed to be sure of all the facts before we assumed anything. It was a perfectly reasonable response, unlike mine.

Between her escorting me to “Rajah’s” room because we really couldn’t go to hers, getting bandages and then finally treating my wounds, we had come up with a plan. For the next few days, the princess was going to interact with as many men as possible to see whether there was a noted difference in their behavior.

We agreed that it would be best to talk to the same people several times throughout the week to verify her findings. The princess wanted to be thorough. If she had her way, we would have begun as soon as my bandages were on, but by then it was nearly sunrise.

I had left the room, found a guard, and transformed back into Rajah. As a tiger, I had no bandages or injuries, so it was easy for me to return to her. Upon seeing me, the princess had taken me to the magician study and now she had explained everything.

“We have to get to the bottom of this,” she said rising from her chair.

I could not agree more. We had to figure this out so I could not fall into another paralyzing animalistic fury today or ever again. My time as a tiger had obviously weakened my self-control and it was past time, I did something about it. I needed to remember that whether I was a man or beast, I was a prince. And how many times had I been told that princes did not give into base instincts like anger or fear?

Enough times to know that I should be above such things. If I wanted to remain at Jasmine’s side and be a credit to her, I would have to take that lesson to heart and master my emotions once again.

That was the promise I made to myself. As of today, I, not Jasmine, would keep my anger in check. I left the study with the princess, feeling a new level of determination.

* * *

Later in the morning, Princess Jasmine dressed in her usual outfit and wore one of the headpieces she had received since Jafar had disappeared. Headpieces were one of the many tasteless gifts Prince Ali had showered her with during his time at Agrabah so she had many to choose from.

After getting dressed, the princess entered court to mingle of her own free will. Something I don’t think I’d ever seen her do. I suppose things might have been different before the sultana died, but Jasmine avoided the court as much as possible. Even as a child, she had not been fond of the place and people and the feeling had been mutual.

Today, things were different. It started at breakfast, when the sultan commented on the princess’s new headpiece.

“Jasmine, my dear, you’re actually wearing a different headpiece today. I must say rose mosan suits you. Doesn’t it, Gagan?” The sultan smiled at her and the new grand vizier of domestic policy.

I expected Grand Vizier Gagan to wheeze out a barely passable answer, but instead he said in a pleasant voice, “Yes. It is rather becoming on you, Princess.”

Jasmine and I stared at him and it took a moment for Jasmine to remember herself and thank him.

Soon, the whole table had compliments for the princess, but I was still stunned. It was not rare for the sultan to praise his daughter’s beauty. But Gagan?

The man was sharp and a supremely competent advisor. That was why I had insisted on his promotion, but he was also very grouchy and rarely had anything flattering to say to anyone at court, let alone an outlier like Princess Jasmine.

The princess’s warm reception did not end there. Princess Jasmine was a mosan stone among rubies today. She wore her court smile well as she spoke with some of our least favorite courtiers in the palace. Their conversations were civil, sometimes even enjoyable. It was unnatural.

Every single man and even some of the women were significantly less horrendous than I remembered. One nobleman’s son, Waheed Seif, who I recalled as being particularly crude and obnoxious, said to her, “Princess, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to talk to you today. I must admit you normally make me so nervous that I say the most inappropriate things.”

He started to laugh so Jasmine followed suit, but it was not a joke. The man was in earnest and he wasn’t the only one. Many commented on how approachable Jasmine seemed today. Nobles were more affable. Guards stood up straighter. Even the sultan seemed sharper than usual.

It was a miracle, but no, it was magic. Jafar’s magic.

As the day wore on and I watched Jasmine talk to one man after another without incident, my mind went over the most distasteful interactions my princess had had with men in the last four years. There had been many, so many, especially with her suitors. How had I just accepted that every single one of those princes was unworthy?

It was too much of a coincidence. I thought about how all of her suitors had been as Jasmine often quipped: fools, lechers and domineering jerks. Not all of those princes started that way.

I could remember some that had seemed promising at first. The main one was Prince Acharia who had been so kind and thoughtful in his letters, only to be completely intolerable in person. Then there were Princes Kato and Odion. They had started out nice enough until they had turned Jasmine into a prize for the twin brothers to fight over. Even Prince Nadim had been friendly for days before his bad habits had undone him.

Jafar had orchestrated all of it. He had put a beacon on my princess’s head to encourage possibly decent men to act like their worse selves around her. And as the princess had gotten older and lonelier, the headpiece’s influence had only grown.

Prince Achmed had been dismissed in less than an hour. And the prince before him hadn’t lasted much longer. Prince Ali had been a bit different but even he had succumbed eventually.

The only other notable exception was myself. Last night, Jasmine had left her headpiece in the magician’s study and I hadn’t noticed a difference when we went to my rooms. I was still the same awkward and angry person I had been in the study. And obviously as a tiger, I felt no different.

I assumed it had to be due to my own curse. Either my amulet protected me, I wasn’t human enough for Jasmine’s headpiece to affect me, or I just wasn’t attractive enough to be affected properly.

That last option was ridiculous. I knew it was, but after a day of holding in my anger as Jasmine talked to and smiled at every young, handsome, intelligent courtier, servant, and guard in the court, I brooded over the remote possibility.

The entire situation was unacceptable. I had always assumed Jafar was sending Jasmine inferior suitors and that the ones Jasmine invited were just bad luck. I never guessed it was anything as insidious as using Jasmine’s own loving nature against her to repel and corrupt the very men she most wanted to befriend.

Jafar had not just ruined her marriage prospects. He had ruined her life for years by robbing her of genuine interactions with half of the human population. Even women disliked Jasmine because of the effect she had on other men. My already socially-inept princess had been ostracized for years.

And I had stood by. I had never questioned the way things were. Like a fool, I had clung to the idea that Jasmine was mine. I had hated each and every one of those princes and was glad when they proved themselves unworthy. I had acted like Jasmine was an object that someone could steal from me.

Jasmine would despise me for having such thoughts. I despised myself. My hatred of her suitors had blinded me to the truth. All these years, I thought I had been protecting her, but she had been cursed and suffering. I had failed her and I hadn’t even realized it.

It was all too much. All these thoughts were driving me mad. I was relieved when dinner ended and I could retire. The second the princess and I parted ways, I went for a swim in the ocean for a few hours, before heading to the magician’s study.

There, I curled up to sleep on the stone floor at the back of the upper study. I did not want to leave anything to chance. When I next spoke to the princess, I was going to convince her that we didn’t need a whole week of this.

I wanted to destroy that headpiece tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, time for another hot take: the sad reality of Princess Jasmine's love life. As a kid, I bought the idea that she and Aladdin were made for each other and yet, as I reexamined her for this fic, I started to think. Princess Jasmine falls for Aladdin because:
> 
>   1. He is capable of not being a total snob. He has to remember that one when he becomes Prince Ali
>   2. He saves her life
>   3. He is fun
>   4. He understands what it means to be trapped
>   5. He listened to her which by extension shows that he respects her. This is truer in the live action remake where he says he is okay with her ruling the kingdom.
>   6. He took her on the adventure of her life and "set her free"
>   7. He is attractive. Can't forget that one. 
> 

> 
> Very romantic, but are you telling me that no other prince could do this? One step further, are you telling me that no other person in the palace (With every new animated visit to Agrabah we see more and more servants, plus the guards) could do this?  
> Obviously, the fanfic answer is no. Jafar, Dalia, Rajah ;) and countless randos get a chance to romance Jasmine, but that's not the point. What in-universe explanation could there be for this?
> 
>   1. Canon reason: Jasmine is pretty much gay/asexual (or just really picky) and Aladdin is an exception, her one true male love
>   2. Jasmine has fallen in love with princes before, but Aladdin is her one true love
>   3. Jasmine is secretly in love with someone else and she decided to settle because of the above reasons, excluding 7
>   4. Jasmine is gay/asexual (or really picky) and she decided to settle because of the above reasons, excluding 7
>   5. Jafar is rigging the suitor selection
> 

> 
> 1 is unlikely because of how fast Jasmine falls in love. It was like she was dying to do so with the first person who fulfilled her requirements (one of which included being male). I don't think her standards are _that_ high. 2, 3 and 4 contradict what Jasmine says in “A Whole New World”. She definitely sounds like she's falling in love for the first time. Also, 3 and 4 are depressing. Jasmine is the best. Doesn't she deserve the best? But 5, 5 makes sense. Jafar is not happy to see an unscheduled prince hanging about. So that's my headcanon.
> 
> But that doesn't work for my Jasmine. Even ignoring the idea that Jasmine never suspected Jafar of messing with the suitor selection (Jafar's hot take will come later), I still like to think that she would be more proactive about selecting a husband. As I have her working, it makes sense she would reach out to find princes with her own contacts. This would disrupt Jafar's bias selection process and foil his evil schemes prematurely.
> 
> Hence, my solution: _magic_  
>  Jafar is a sorcerer after all. ;)
> 
> That's all for now. Please leave your comments and reviews. What do you think of this hot take and Jasmine's curse?


	33. Her Headpiece

I awoke with a start and immediately sat up to look at my hands. Apart from being bandaged, they appeared to be perfectly normal human hands.

“Thank the mother goddess.”

I had just had a terrible dream. Jasmine and I had been arguing. I had gotten angry. The same encompassing fury I had felt the night before had overtook me and I had…

I had…

I flexed my fingers experimentally. I watched my hands carefully. As a tiger, I had retractable claws, but my human fingernails remained short and neatly trimmed as always.

I told myself to calm down. I was human. I had normal human hands. I was alright and Jasmine…

Jasmine!

What time was it? I looked around. The door to the lower study was ajar.

“Princess!” I called out.

“I’m downstairs Ren,” her voice responded.

I breathed.

Of course, she was downstairs.

I got up.

Enough of this worrying over dreams, I had a mission tonight: Destroy Jasmine’s headpiece.

I made my way down to the lower study. The princess was sitting at the desk reading. She was fine. I felt myself relax fully and I grimaced at my own foolishness.

“Ren?” Jasmine looked up at me. Her eyes were closed, thankfully. I had forgotten to ask her to put on her blindfold or to tell her I was coming down for that matter.

“Good Evening, Princess,” I said. “I apologize for not giving you more warning.”

“It’s very unlike you to forget,” she said reaching for her blindfold.

“Again, I apologize. I am a bit…out of sorts tonight.”

“Are you?” she asked. There was something in her expression. Before I could interpret it, she said, “Ren, what would you do if I told you that I wanted you to dance with me right now in the study?”

I froze. She wanted to dance. With me? Why?

An image floated into my mind of me teaching Jasmine the steps to a Mujulaai partner dance, Jasmine looking down at me, her eyes sparkling, as I held her up in the air in a lift. I could almost hear her laugh.

But no. I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. “Princess, I…”

“Or what if I wanted to know how you hurt your hands.”

I blinked. What?

My nightmare popped into my head again. The claws. The blood. Her scream. I pushed it away and said, “I’m not sure-”

“What if I told you I wanted to parade around the palace in peasant clothes all week.”

I frowned. “Princess, what sort of joke is this?”

She was quiet. Her expression had become oddly intense.

“Princess?” I repeated coming closer to the desk.

“It’s Jasmine,” she corrected.

“Princess Jasmine then, why are you asking me these things?”

Jasmine got up and silently went over to me.

Like a coward, I took a step back when she got uncomfortably close.

“Ren,” she said, “tell me something, anything that you don’t like about me.”

“Why would-”

“Just tell me,” she pressed. Then she finally waited for me to finish a sentence.

“You can be…too impulsive,” I finally said disliking the words as they left my mouth. I did not like to criticize her without a cause or reason. “Is that sufficient? Did I pass?” For this had to be some sort of test.

The princess’s expression didn’t change as she said, “One more question.” She stepped closer. She was centimeters away again.

I took a step back.

“Do I look different to you?” she asked.

I looked her over. She was so close. The princess had the same luscious hair, soft-looking skin, full lips begging to be…

“No. Not really. You’re still wearing that mosan headpiece. Your blindfold is twisted and your hair is a bit messier than usual, but otherwise you look the same to me.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Jasmine?”

“You pass,” she concluded.

“Good. Now can you please explain what that was about?” I asked.

Jasmine’s expression softened and I could feel her searching gaze through her blindfold. “My old headpiece didn’t have an effect on you, did it?”

Of course! That’s what this had been about. “That’s correct. Though we established that last night, didn’t we?”

Jasmine thankfully took a step back. “Yes, we did, but that was before today happened. Ren, can you tell me _why_ you weren’t affected by my headpiece?”

“Probably not.”

Jasmine sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I would tell her if I could.

“No. It’s alright,” she said, “Come. Let’s sit down.” She gestured at the far wall where we had set up some floor cushions a few weeks ago. “I need to talk to you about today.”

“Alright,” I said. I followed her to the cushions and then we sat down, facing one another.

Jasmine began to describe the day from her perspective and I felt my mouth go dry. She concluded her tale by saying, “It’s not that it was a bad day because it wasn’t. It was one of the most pleasant days I’d had at court in a long time. Everyone was so nice, but…they were all different. It was…”

“Unnatural?” I suggested.

“And terrifying,” she added. The princess was clutching the sides of her floor pillow so tightly that her skin turned pale. “I realized that I know almost nothing about anyone in the palace. I have been living in a nightmare for years without even knowing it.”

I was seized with a desire to embrace her and truly comfort her. I settled for placing a hand on top of one of hers and saying with as much compassion as I could muster, “I’m sorry, Jasmine.” I couldn’t imagine how scary and isolating today had been for her.

It was unforgivable.

I felt some of my earlier anger rise up in me. I clamped down on it. I did not need that right now. Instead, I remembered my mission for the night. I told her, “I’ve been thinking. I know we agreed to a week of data gathering, but perhaps we ought to destroy your headpiece tonight.”

“I already did.”

I blinked.

She slipped out of my grip so that she could gesture at the lab table behind her. There was a conspicuous beaker full of green liquid with a bubbling piece of gold at the bottom.

As I studied the beaker, the princess said, “I came here after dinner and looked up destruction methods and when I found one that I thought would work. I just went for it. I know I should have waited for you. I know you would have waited for me but I,” Her voice was as brittle as ice. “I needed to destroy it. As soon as possible. I hope you understand.”

“I do.” And I did. “It was your right, of course, and it needed to be done.”

“So, you’re not upset with me?”

I was upset, but not with her. It wasn’t her fault that I had failed her. It wasn’t her fault that I was still failing her. That was my fault and…

“Ren?”

I sighed. “I am not upset with you, Princess. I am just…” What word to use? Angry? Furious? Frustrated? “disappointed that I could not be of more assistance to you.” To put it mildly.

Jasmine went very still. Then she covered her mouth with one of her hands. The other gripped the floor cushion tightly as her shoulders began to shake and she started to laugh.

I felt my face flush as I watched her. This had to be the first time in months that I wasn’t happy to see her laugh.

After what felt like forever, she gasped out, “I’m sorry. Now I really have upset you.”

“Not at all,” I said tersely.

The princess started to laugh all over again.

I rolled my eyes.

Really now.

“I’m sorry,” she said again once she had finally regained her composure. “I really am. It’s just. Ren, you are one of the most helpful people I know. I find the idea of you needing to provide _more_ assistance utterly ridiculous and I got carried away.”

As she often did.

“I understand,” I said, almost managing to take the bite out of my words.

She shook her head. “Somehow I doubt that.” The princess reached out and touched my arm.

The sudden contact made my heart stutter.

“Ren.” Jasmine said my name softly, like a caress.

I swallowed.

Her voice remained warm and gentle as she said, “I cannot express how grateful I am to you. I am so thankful for all the help you have given me over the past few months and I sincerely hope that one day I’ll be able to return the favor.”

Return the favor? Was she saying what I thought she was saying? But no, she couldn’t mean that. Could she?

“But that might take a while, so in the meantime.” She removed her hand from my arm and sat up straight. “There’s something else I need your help with.”

“Of course,” I said. I was relieved to be on familiar ground again and not at all sad to lose the warmth of her touch. “I am at your service. What is it?”

“Jafar.”

I bristled as a wave of rage overtook me. I forced myself to breathe in and then out. With effort, I pushed the feeling back down and did my best to focus on my princess’s words.

She said, “It’s possible that he has set up other spells in the palace. We have to figure out how to undo them and now more than ever we have to find out what Jafar was up to. He could even now be controlling the court from afar.”

“You’re right,” I managed to say. A man who was able to curse an innocent 11-year-old girl, was capable of many things. If I wasn’t so sure he hadn’t been around for my drowning, I would have placed my own curse at his feet as well.

“Then let’s get started,” Jasmine said, standing up. “I filled the upper desk with more scrolls on gemstones and I’m going to take another look at the unarchive scrolls down here. Now that I know what to look for, I think they will be a lot more informative. After that, I guess we’ll have to cover the rest of the study.”

I stood up as well, surveying the tall shelves around us. There were a lot of scrolls to go through. “Alright,” I said, “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

I left the princess in the lower study and climbed the stairs back up to the other room. As I settled down at the small desk and looked at the scrolls Jasmine had placed there, I felt a sense of loss. Somehow our fun distraction had morphed into a kingdom-wide conspiracy which meant the princess and I had yet another crisis to solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether you believe it or not, this chapter went through a lot of tweaking. I considered a myriad of scenarios but in the end, I decided that Jasmine being her resourceful self had probably already placed her headpiece in alchemical acid by the time, "Rajah" entered the magician's study for his nap.  
> With our pair working hard on a new mystery, I am quite excited for the next chapter. You're all in for a surprise.  
> ;)  
> And probably another hot take.


	34. A Surprise

Tonight, I sat alone in the princess’s _new_ study. She had moved her offices to the sultana’s study because the sultan had taken back his own study and begun government work again several days ago.

This was just one of the many changes that had happened recently. Ever since we found out about Jasmine’s headpiece, the princess and I had searched for more of the former grand vizier’s sorcery. There was plenty to be found.

Some of the palace pillows had sleep sand in them to induce heavy slumber. There were scores of enchanted uniforms and other clothing items. Half of the seasonings in the kitchens were tainted with magicked ingredients.

We also discovered that there were multiple charms placed on the sultan. The feather in the sultan’s turban decreased intelligence and the turban’s ruby magnified the sultan’s loyalty to Jafar. Even the sultan’s beloved wooden figurines used a special type of paint that encourage the sultan to play with them in lieu of doing his actual job.

It was a similar story with most of the advisors. They all had their own cursed gemstone, “good” luck charm, family heirloom, or some other accessory that was tailored to nullify their usefulness or foster their loyalty to Jafar. It soon seemed like there wasn’t a single person in court that the sorcerer hadn’t enchanted in some way.

Jasmine and I were doing our best to cleanse the palace of all these cursed items and the initial results were transformative. As I said, the sultan was now a productive member of government and last week, my new reorganization plan had finally started working as intended. With the palace suddenly full of intelligent, decent, and capable people, the court was flourishing.

Jasmine and I both had less work to do. At this point, we were approving more documents than we were drafting. Most of our time these days was spend in the magician’s study trying to get through the remaining scrolls to ensure we hadn’t missed any evil enchantments.

But despite the reduction in government work, I had still told Jasmine that once a week I wanted to have a full night of work in her study.

I was hiding in here, like a coward. It was shameful.

A few months ago, I would have been overjoyed by how my life was going. During the day, I got to be by Jasmine’s side as Rajah and see how happy and productive she was. Then every night, I became human which was a miracle each time it happened.

My blessings didn’t stop there. I was on speaking terms with the princess and we were friends, good friends. I had helped her save Agrabah from a national crisis. I was regarded as a mysterious hero in the court. I had made my mark on the entire city.

And yet, there were some days where I couldn’t summon a fraction of the gratitude and happiness I should be feeling. Instead, I was often fighting off a growing sense of resentment. Everyone else had escaped their curse and received their happy ending.

Everyone but me.

I sighed.

In the study, I didn’t have to conceal my bitterness or pretend that I was as content as everyone else, but it didn’t stop the guilt. Like anger and fear, envy, bitterness, and resentment were emotions that were unworthy of a Mujulaain prince. I shouldn’t need to indulge myself to deal with them. It was another weakness I had developed from my time as a tiger.

I sighed again.

I knew that my curse, my shame, and my lack of self-control were ongoing problems that weren’t going to be solved tonight. Instead, I turned my mind back to the report from our new Shehrabad ambassador. Despite the favorable trade deals and other bargaining chips she had at her disposal, our ambassador was still being completely disregarded in the Shehrabad court.

I frowned. The ambassador wanted a transfer, but she wasn’t the problem. Shehrabad’s change in attitude was probably somehow Jafar’s fault just like the issues with Getzistan. I had been the one to re-establish that relationship. I would do the same here.

I just needed to get some greater perspective and figure out the possible causes for the rift between Agrabah and Shehrabad. If it was like Getzistan, Jafar had not caused the issue directly, but had probably used magic to ignore the underlying problems and enforce civil relations. Uncovering the true reason behind Shehrabad’s coldness would require going through trade contracts and correspondences that dated back before Jafar and maybe even before the sultan’s marriage. I might also need to contact some of the older viziers to see what they knew.

I rose from the desk and was about to search the study to see whether it had any of the documents I wanted when I heard a knock on the door.

I looked over in surprise.

“Ren? Can you come outside?”

It was Jasmine. What was she doing here?

I went to the door and opened it cautiously.

There were no curious guards in sight. It was just Jasmine. She stood out in the hallway wearing her blindfold and smiling up at me.

“Good evening, Princess Jasmine. How can I help you?”

Jasmine scowled. “There’s no need for that tone.”

“I was just-”

Jasmine cut me off. “I know I’m supposed to leave you alone tonight, but I need you to follow me.” She grabbed my arm.

“But I was working on the Shehrabad problem,” I protested.

“That can wait,” she told me as she tugged my arm. “This can’t.”

“Very well,” I sighed. “Lead the way.”

Jasmine shot me another smile and began pulling me out of the office and towards the gardens.

She was obviously excited about something. I tried to shake off my dower mood and let her enthusiasm infect me as it usually did, but I was finding it hard tonight.

I really had wanted to be alone.

* * *

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” I asked, looking around. Jasmine hadn’t taken me to the peacock fountain like I had expected her to. Instead, we were in an isolated part of the garden that laid by the sea.

“Almost there,” she promised as she dragged me through a bunch of imported willow trees. I held up my arm to make sure her way was clear and suddenly I knew we had arrived.

In front of us was a small clearing. A large rug had been laid out in the middle of the space. On it were several covered golden platters. From their haphazard arrangement, I could only guess that Jasmine had set this up herself.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Surprise!” Jasmine had a big smile on her face.

“Surprise?”

“You told me once that your birthday was during Makarsankranti, so I figured that your birthday is either tonight or later this morning.”

“I…yes, well…but…” Words seemed to have abandoned me, so I decided to stop trying. Instead, I surveyed the picnic.

One of the odd things about my curse was that I was rarely hungry or truly tired during my human hours. I ate my food and slept in my tiger form, so I hadn’t actually had a full meal as a human yet. The closest I’d come to it was an occasional midnight snack with Jasmine. Compare to that, this was a feast.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” she said tugging me again. “Sit down.”

“Alright,” I said.

I sat down on the edge of the rug and Jasmine followed suit. I took a deep breath in. Even with the covers on, it smelled like home.

“Come on,” she said eagerly. “Open them.”

One by one I lifted up the covers and revealed the miniature dishes. There were several different curried meats and vegetables, chutney, koshimbir, usal and chapati bread. The last platter held a bowl of peeled peaches and beside it, a bowl of fresh cream.

I took a fork. After I plucked a peach slice out of the bowl and dipped it in the cream, I brought it up to my nose. It smelled so sweet. I couldn’t resist. I carefully stuffed the entire slice into my mouth.

Chewing had become a lost art for me. I was too used to being a tiger and having fangs, but at the moment, I didn’t care whether I was eating correctly. The peach was a slice of paradise.

I let out a small moan of pleasure before I could stop myself. It was that good.

“You like it?” Jasmine asked, gleefully.

I looked over at her. I felt bad for how sullen I’d been before. She’d set all this up for me. Suddenly my face felt hot. “Yes. I do. Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome,” she said sitting back. “I was a bit worried. I had to ask around to figure out what some of the dishes were. I’m sure the kitchens got most of them right, but people can be very particular about their native cuisine. I’m glad it’s to your liking.”

“It’s great, Jasmine,” I assured her before taking a bite of the lamb curry. It too was delicious.

Though even if I hadn’t liked the food, I still would have appreciated the gesture. “I can’t believe you did this. You actually listened to me that one time I droned on about food for hours?” That conversation had been weeks ago before we had gone to the magician’s study. I had been so sure that I had accidently bored her to death then.

“Of course!” she said indignantly. “I’ll have you know, I’m not as flighty as I seem, Ren.”

“So, you admit that you seem flighty,” I teased.

She shoved me. “Hush you. Eat your birthday dinner like a good boy.”

I didn’t have to be told twice.

I _love_ food. I never realized this until today, but I did. Everything tasted slightly different than I remembered. If you asked me before I came to Agrabah, I would have said peaches and cream was my favorite food, but now I was gravitating towards the meat curries and the usal.

Regardless, everything and I mean _everything_ was like a breath of fresh air.

As a tiger I ate different cuts of meat. Sometimes I had goat instead of lamb. Maybe I’d go swimming and catch a fish in the ocean, but that was it. Today I really felt like a prince. I almost didn’t know what to do with the food in front of me.

Almost.

I was so engrossed in the meal that I didn’t realize Jasmine wasn’t eating anything until much later. When I finally did notice that she’d been idle all this time, I felt guilty again. I had just sat and ate like an animal while she waited patiently for me.

Patient wasn’t the right word for it though. Jasmine wasn’t a patient person. She only pretended to be and right now I could see by the way her fingers were tapping lightly on her thighs that she was restless.

I put my fork down and asked, “Jasmine?”

“Yes!” she said sharply.

I blinked at her.

“Sorry…um. It’s just…um…I never would have guessed you were so hungry. I hope you’re not always like this. I’d hate to think I was starving you or something. What sort of friend would that make me, right?”

I wasn’t sure. I had no idea what to make of her odd response. Luckily, Jasmine saved me from trying by saying, “I’m sorry, Ren. Please ignore that. What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh.” Right. My original purpose for interrupting my feast. “I was just wondering if you wanted…” I scanned the rug for something that was available. I had finished off most of the food which shouldn’t have been possible. There had been so much. Finally, I spotted something I could offer. “Peaches?”

“I’m more of a pomegranate person myself.”

“Oh…” Well damn.

“But I can try it,” she offered quickly.

“Only if you want to,” I said. I didn’t want to force her to eat food she didn’t like.

“I do,” she assured me, but then she just sat there.

“Um…”

“Ren, I can’t see anything, remember?” She gestured at her blindfold.

Right.

“So, feed me, or go back to eating.”

I stared at her. She wanted me to feed her? An image came to my mind. That was not what she meant.

Surely not.

However, I couldn’t stop thinking about it as I grabbed a new fork, plucked up another peach slice, and dipped it into the cream. At the last moment, I forced myself to place the fork into one of her hands like the prince I had been raised to be.

Jasmine used the fork to plop the cream-topped peach slice into her mouth. I watched as she closed her lips around the fruit and chewed.

“Mm,” she said thoughtfully and then she licked her lips. There was a bit of cream at the corner of her mouth. Her tongue dabbed out and got it.

I shivered.

“That was pretty good,” she said. “I can see why you like it as a dessert. The cream really balances out the sweetness.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. My mind was replaying that moment with the cream.

We were just friends, weren’t we? Oh gods, save me from doing something stupid.

“So, are you all done now?” she asked.

I swallowed. I had lost my appetite for food.

Damn it. Dhiren. Stop it.

I forced my mouth which was still slack-jawed to utter a weak, “Yea.”

Jasmine shot up.

I guess I was right. She had been restless.

“I’ll be right back.” The princess raced over to a nearby tree.

“Be careful,” I called, getting up. She was still wearing her blindfold.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Sit down, Ren.”

I stayed standing and I watched as she started to pull something out from behind the willow tree. It was a large chest.

“Princess, let me,” I said going over to her.

“I got-” she began. “Hey!”

I had picked up the chest and was carrying it over to the picnic rug.

“I was going to bring it to you,” she complained.

“No need,” I said, placing the chest down.

Blindfolded people shouldn’t be trusted with heavy objects.

I looked down at the chest, I had just pilfered from her. “So, what is this?”

“Your birthday gift,” she replied, coming to stand next to me.

“But the food…”

“Was food. This is a gift. A proper gift,” she declared. “Go ahead and open it.”

“But what is it? It looks like it belongs on a pirate ship.”

“You have to find out,” Jasmine said and I could tell she was getting a bit annoyed. “By opening it,” she finished pointedly.

“I don’t know…” I teased, “Maybe I should wait.”

Jasmine shoved me and said, “Ren! Open the chest!”

“Alright, alright,” I said. I lifted the lid.

Scrolls.

The chest was lined with waterproof leather and filled with them.

I picked up a scroll from the top of the pile and opened it to look inside. When I read the first line, my heart stopped.

> **དཀའ་བཟློག་མ་དངབདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པའི་གནས།: གཅིག བཀའ དང དཀའ་བཟློག་མ་ དང དགའ་རོགས** **སེང་གེ།**

But no, this wasn’t my mother’s handwriting. It was just the work of a well-trained Ghamese scribe.

“So?” Jasmine prompted.

“It’s in Ghamese,” I said, looking at her.

She nodded enthusiastically. “You’re fluent, aren’t you?”

I was, but when had I told her that?

“What does it say,” she pressed.

I translated and began to read it aloud for her:

> _ Durgajnaho: The True Teachings of Durga and Damon _
> 
> _Durgajnaho is the purest form of Durgara which is a subset of Hinduism that_
> 
> _focuses on the Goddess Durga and to a lesser extent her divine partner, the_
> 
> _tiger, Damon. The other four sects: Durgaradasa, Durgama, Durgani,_
> 
> _Durgarondu misunderstand the teachings of Durga and Damon and will lead_
> 
> _the countries that follow them down a path of hubris and suffering. Only_
> 
> _Durgajnaho can provide healing, enlightenment, and timeless truth. As_
> 
> _symbolized by the Medallion of the Damon Amulet. Durgajnaho is the piece_
> 
> _that unifies the others, the center of the whole, the empty space in between._

I looked over at Jasmine. “Are all these scrolls about the different Durgara sects?”

“That or blue gemstones,” she said, “I noticed your interest.”

She had?

“So, I contacted the five kingdoms that practice forms of Durgara and asked for information on the religion and blue gemstones.”

My mouth went dry.

I was an idiot. Why on earth had I not thought of that?

“The Ghama Dynasty and Bhreenam responded, but I’m unfortunately still waiting on Takanda and Mujulaain.” She scowled. “And I think Shehrabad might be ignoring me.”

There was a pause and then Jasmine asked eagerly, “So? Do you like your gift? I never really asked why you were interested in either topic. I kind of assumed that you wouldn’t have an answer for me, but still, I apologize if I was being presumptuous. I just…”

She was starting to babble from nervousness. I understood nervous talking all too well. I rescued her by saying, “I very much like your gift, Jasmine.” The words felt wrong. I didn’t just _like_ her gift. It was exactly what I needed, especially if those scrolls from Mujulaain arrived. And I hadn’t needed to ask. I probably wouldn’t have been able to ask and yet she’d known. “This is a wonderful gift. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Really. Thank you, Princess.”

Jasmine beamed at me. “Oh well…I had hoped that you would like it. I mean I was fairly sure you would. I know you like reading so there was a good chance you’d like it, but again the topic. You know I had debated giving you poetry instead, because you like poetry, not because…well anyway I’m glad you like it, especially since I’m not certain if you’ll enjoy your last gift. Not that your last gift is bad. It’s not. I’m just not sure if-”

She was doing it again. Princess Jasmine was well and truly babbling and it didn’t seem like she was going to stop, not without help. So, I cut her off by asking, “Jasmine, what do you mean by last gift?”

“Oh! Well, it’s nothing big, just…well, you’ll see.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see after that glowing recommendation. This mystery gift had to be the reason she was so out of sorts. Princess Jasmine was the type of person who kept a tiger as a pet. She could be appallingly fearless. Anything that made her uncomfortable was something to be wary of.

“You know princess, I think two gifts is more than enough.”

“So, do I, but as of now I have only given you _one_ gift and a meal,” she said pedantically.

“Surely such a well thought out meal is its own gift,” I claimed.

“Ren, I need you to put the scroll down,” she said.

“Princess, this really isn’t necessary.”

“Put the scroll down,” she repeated. Her nervousness had evaporated. Her tone was resolute.

I reluctantly put down the scroll.

“Face me,” she commanded.

I turned. Her voice might be steady, but she still looked anxious. I could tell by her stance and the way her hands were twitching.

I frowned. What was she planning?

“Now close your eyes,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise. Just do it,” she ordered.

My frown deepened.

“Are they closed?” she asked.

“I really don’t-”

“Allah above, Ren,” she said in a tight voice. “I wear a blindfold every night because of you. I think you can handle closing your eyes for a minute.”

She had a point, but, “That’s a rather flawed argument, princess. The blindfold was your idea.”

Jasmine pouted at me. “Sometimes you can be insufferable.”

“Should I apologize for being right?”

The princess huffed out a frustrated breath. “I don’t need an apology. Ren, will you _please_ close your eyes?”

“Since you asked so nicely, yes I will.” I couldn’t help grinning at her.

Oblivious, she asked, “So, they are closed?”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Good,” she said, a little petulantly. “Keep them that way.”

At least she wasn’t nervous any more. Instead, I was. I really wasn’t sure how Jasmine survived my company if this was what her nights were like. I felt so vulnerable and the princess’s odd behavior wasn’t helping.

I could sense her. She was so close and coming closer. I wanted to move away and maintain proper distance, but I wasn’t sure where to go. There were dinner dishes everywhere. One wrong step and I could fall over and make a mess.

“Princess,” I said apprehensively. “What are you-”

I nearly squawked.

Jasmine had wrapped her arms around me in a hug. Her head was buried into my chest so her words reverberated through me as she said in a rush, “Ren, I know you’re going to say this isn’t proper, but I’ve felt like you needed a hug for ages. Normally, it wouldn’t be right, but it’s your birthday and in the Bobolonius family, we give birthday hugs so before you give me a huge lecture, I want you to just take the birthday hug and tomorrow, I promise you can tell me about what an unorthodox improper lady I am being right now or some such other nonsense. Okay?”

I stared down at her. I should give her a lecture. This wasn’t just improper. It was scandalous to be embracing in some far-off corner in the palace gardens. I should push the princess away and tell her so. I couldn’t condone her acting so forwardly.

I wasn’t her betrothed anymore. And I was cursed. And she was still technically engaged to someone else. And she didn’t even know who I was. And…and…there had to be a least a dozen more reasons to stop this.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any of them. Even if I could, I wasn’t sure any of them would matter to me right now. My mind was quickly filling with one thought. The only thing that really mattered:

Jasmine.

I could feel the tension in her as she clung to me. She was waiting for me to push her away, to reject her, as if I could. It would be easier to stop breathing.

I decided she was right. I would have to save the lecture for another day. For now, I concentrated on slowly and carefully hugging Jasmine back. My face was burning and I felt even more vulnerable than before, but as I held on, I felt a growing sense of peace.

I had obviously underestimated Jasmine. She knew me far better than I thought. I had wanted this. I had needed this.

I closed my eyes and dared to tighten my embrace a bit. This felt so good, so right.

“Thank you, Jasmine.” The words came out more like a soft rumble than individual sounds.

I swore Jasmine smiled against my chest as she replied, “Happy Birthday, Ren.”

We didn’t say anything else. At some point, I knew I needed to let go of her and at some point, I would. For now, I just held her tight and kept my eyes closed as I tried to capture this incredible moment.

This incredible feeling, it was like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Ren!  
> Yes, today, January 15th is his canonical birthday. Hence why I really wanted to publish this chapter today.  
> :)  
> I hope you liked the surprise.
> 
> But on to business. I didn't just promise a chapter. I also promised another hot take. As much as I'd love to unpack the Mujulaain and Ghamese concepts of emotional health or talk about just how well Jasmine may or may not know her friend, Ren. That will have to wait for another day. 
> 
> Today our subject is Jafar's magical abilities. It's interesting that Jafar does not use that much magic in the 1992 movie before the climax. His staff, the golden scarab, his old man transformation (which may involve no magic), and the scrying orb are all we see. Plus, there's Iago, if you want to count the bird. I don't. Only after Jafar makes his 2nd wish, to become the greatest sorcerer into the world, is Jafar able to do real magic. The main conclusion I draw from all this is that Jafar is actually pretty bad at magic. Hence why the lamp is so interesting to him. I assume anyway. Can we just agree that Jafar's wishes in general need work? 
> 
> Anyway, I sort of rolled with that concept of minimal magic here. Jasmine defines it in Chapter 30. Jafar's magic is all about small manipulations and enchanted items. Jafar just uses the innate spiritual/magical properties of objects to create charms to further his own agenda. And unlike movie Jafar, I wanted my Jafar to really get into using what magic he has. The charms are easy to undo, but Jafar has been stacking spell after spell, so that by the time Ren and Jasmine find out what he's been up to, its a web of curses. This can help explain a lot of the strangeness of Agrabah. Obviously, there's Jasmine's headpiece and her issues with suitors, but now the sultan's foolish negligence can be explained too! Plus, it makes Jafar more threatening.
> 
> That's all for now. 
> 
> What did you think of this birthday chapter and my Jafar's magical pursues?  
> Things really seem to be looking up in Ren's life, so I guess it's time to start a new arc.


	35. The Festival

The following afternoon, Jasmine and I were outside in the south courtyard. She was seated beside the sultan on a raised dais to overlook the outdoor festivities. I laid between them on the dais floor, facing the crowd. From our vantage point, we were all able to watch the Agrabah court celebrate its own version of Makarsankranti.

It was the first holiday after the court had been awaken and it showed. Everywhere there was joy and laughter. Courtiers were flying elaborate kites. There were dancers, music, and other performers on the grass as well as an assortment of delicious food. It was a spectacle of color, but I paid it little mind. My thoughts were elsewhere.

I couldn’t stop thinking about last night in the gardens. The picnic, the scrolls, that hug…it had all been completely unexpected and I had loved it, but my mind was mostly occupied with the conversation Jasmine and I had started just before dawn.

* * *

Last night, I had stood there embracing Jasmine for I don’t know how long, but when I opened my eyes, the sky had lightened to a soft blue.

“Ren? What’s wrong?”

I had looked down.

Jasmine had her head tilted up at me.

“It’s almost dawn,” I told her regretfully. I didn’t have much time left before I transformed.

“Is it?” Her tone was neutral, but I thought perhaps she was disappointed too. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I suppose we ought to call it a night. I hope you had a good birthday.” She gave me one last squeeze and then she let me go.

I willed my arms to move. I needed to let go of her too, but instead I started talking. “Jasmine. I’m sorry. I…I wish…” that I could stay here with you, that we could go back to hugging, that I could tell you who I am, that I wasn’t curse, that…

“I know.”

“You know?” I stared at her. She couldn’t know.

Jasmine’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I might be blindfolded Ren, but I’m not blind,” she said in a teasing voice.

“But…how…what?” I didn’t know what I was trying to say. I didn’t know what _she_ was trying to say. I had to be jumping to conclusions.

“I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?”

Yes.

“Didn’t I tell you I’m not as flighty as I seem? Ren.” She hesitated and her voice became more serious and less confident. “I wasn’t sure. I’m still not, but…”

My amulet began to glow. “Jasmine.” I let go of the princess and stepped back.

“Ren?” She reached out, but I was already too far away.

“I have-” That was all I got out, before I transformed again. Suddenly I was sitting on the ground looking up at her.

“Ren? Ren, are you still here?”

Yes! But all that came out was an animal whine.

Jasmine slowly took off her blindfold. She looked down and saw me. “Oh. Morning Rajah. You’re up early.” She knelt down and petted my head. “I guess you caught me and Ren out here.”

I stared into her eyes. They were shiny for a moment before she blinked and they went back to normal.

I nuzzled her hand.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” she told me in a falsely cheerful voice. “Ren was a perfect gentleman. I was just giving him a birthday hug and before you say anything, I know when I talk to Ren later tonight, he’ll give me a lecture, so there’s really no need for you to give me a lecture too.”

I shook my head. First, she wasn’t fine. She was nearly as upset as I was. Second, I had not been a perfect gentleman. I should not have held on to her like I had. She really needed to raise her standards. And third, I didn’t want to lecture her tonight. I wanted to talk to her now. What had she been about to say? It had sounded important.

Jasmine just rubbed my cheek. “I swear if he doesn’t give me a lecture on the dangers of hugging or some such nonsense tonight, you can give me a proper talking to tomorrow. Okay?”

I nodded. It wasn’t okay, but she didn’t need to know that I would be agonizing over our unfinished conversation all day long.

* * *

But that was exactly what I was doing. It was hours later and I was still asking myself:

What had Jasmine been about to say before I transformed?

Was it possible that she had wanted to discuss my curse? Nowadays, Jasmine rarely mentioned my ability to “disappear” or anything else curse-related when it came to me. I had begun to think my curse was actively stopping her from noticing anything.

It hadn’t occurred to her that her tiger and her adviser were the same person and it was not for lack of trying on her part. I still hadn’t forgotten the time Jasmine trapped me in a meeting room. I had been alone in there with no way out, but when dawn came and Jasmine had opened the locked door, she had been baffled to find Rajah instead of Ren. The obvious solution never seemed to enter her mind.

I had assumed it was like that with all of the aspects of my curse. But what if I was wrong?

What if Jasmine had stopped talking to me about my curse because she realized I couldn’t discuss it? It could explain a lot of the princess’s more bizarre behavior, like the night she destroyed her headpiece. She had thanked me for discovering the cursed object’s existence and said:

_I sincerely hope that one day I’ll be able to return the favor._

Yes, it had been a general thank you for all my help, but still.

And the scrolls! What if they hadn’t just been a thoughtful gift, but her indirectly offering aid? I could just imagine Jasmine, on top of her government work and undoing Jafar’s magic, spending time secretly investigating me. It made sense to keep it a secret from me as Ren.

But did I really think she would not say anything to me as Rajah?

That last question made the whole idea seem like a far-fetch conspiracy. Nearly as far-fetched as the other possibility my mind kept insisting upon:

Courtship.

There were _occasionally_ times when I suspected that _perhaps_ Jasmine _might possibly_ be interested in something more than friendship. She acted so familiar with me. She spoke without guile when we were together. And she was always touching me, elbowing me, and pulling me from one location to another. And she had been so flustered last night.

And that hug. Birthday traditions aside, it had been a very forward thing to do which she had to know. And then she had said:

_I’m not blind._

Like she knew that I was always two steps away from doing something ridiculous when I was around her. And she approved.

A lesser man might see all that as an invitation for further intimacy, but I was a prince, not a lovesick fool. Jasmine did not care for me in that way. I knew what the princess looked like when she was infatuated and there had been no signs of that last night or any other night.

She and I were _friends_. The princess thought I was, at best, a random foreign nobleman and thus, ineligible. And I _was_ ineligible because of my curse.

As for the rest, her conversation was candid because she was a naturally forthright person. She was always touching me because she was blindfolded most of the time and she trusted me not to take advantage of her. She had been nervous last night because she thought I would not approve of her hugging me.

And the hug…

She claimed it had been for my benefit and it had been. I’ll never forget the feeling I got when I held her. It had been so peaceful and so…right.

However, as nice as that hug was, it did not mean that the princess had been on the verge of suggesting courtship with me, a literal nobody. She could have been about to discuss anything last night…as she stood in my arms, gazing up at me.

 _Anything_. I repeated to myself firmly.

And of course, anything in my mind quickly translated to my curse and so, I began again. It seemed like nothing would stop my futile musings, but I was finally saved from myself when an odd smell caught my attention.

I immediately wrinkled my nose.

 _What_ was _that?_

I lifted my head and sniffed. Whenever there was a large court event like this festival. I expected there to be a lot of unfamiliar scents, but whatever had caught my attention hadn’t been unfamiliar. I concentrated.

The air was filled with the pleasant aroma of baked goods, spices, freshly cut grass, perfumes and such, but there was also something I did not like. Metal, oil and just the faintest whiff of…

Monkey?

I growled softly. That stench was familiar alright. I searched the crowd, trying to pinpoint the source of the offending odor.

“Rajah?” Jasmine asked, looking down at me. “What is it? Have you grown tired of all this excitement?”

I shook my head and stood up to get a better view of the crowd.

“Is everything alright, my dear?” the sultan asked. He was on my other side.

The princess placed a hand on my head and said in a calming voice, “Of course it is. Right Rajah?”

I heard the unspoken command, but she didn’t understand. I looked back at her and whined. Things were far from alright. If I was right…

A familiar nasally voice said, “Princess Jasmine.”

We all turned.

I found the source of the smell. I wasn’t sure how I had missed it.

Two Ababwan men stood before Jasmine dressed in purple and gold. One was a bell-ringer. He held his staff of silver bells aloft. The other was a thin, bearded monkey trainer. He too had his prop on him. His Persian monkey lay asleep in the gilded cage he held.

I sniffed again. Yes. I wasn’t mistaken. It was the bell-ringer, not the monkey trainer, or even the chimp, who smelled of monkey.

I squinted at the bell-ringer. I was convinced that he looked nothing like Prince Ali, though I was hard pressed to say what he did look like. It was so odd. I examined him trying to find something, anything, notable. Then I spotted the ruby ring on his finger. It looked…

Gah!

I squeezed my eyes shut and I fell back into a sitting position. The glare of the sun on that ring must have blinded me for a moment. I blinked a few times and rubbed my head. That had hurt.

While I was trying to recover my wits, the monkey trainer said, “We have news for you, Princess.” His voice was grating and I knew I had heard it before, but…

“Do you indeed?” the sultan said. The subtle challenge in his voice drew my gaze.

The sultan was smiling, but there was a gleam in his eyes. I recognized that expression from Jasmine. The man was not pleased that the servants hadn’t acknowledged him.

The slight was not something the sultan would have noticed if this had happened a few weeks ago, but ever since Jasmine had destroyed her headpiece and the sultan had lost his feather, the sultan acted like a different man. Though he was still cheerful and kind most of the time, there was a new, or rather old, shrewdness to him.

“Your Highness,” the monkey trainer said, realizing his mistake. He made a deep bow to the sultan.

Beside him, the bell-ringer just stood there. After a moment, the monkey trainer noticed and jerked the bell-ringer forward to force him into a similar position.

There was something about these two. They were so…lively which was unusual for Ababwans. I frowned. I could feel a headache forming.

“What sort of news do you bring?” the sultan prompted. At least, _he_ was thinking clearly.

I expected the monkey trainer to answer, but the bell-ringer spoke first. He stood up straight. Instead of addressing the sultan, the uncouth fool looked boldly at the princess and announced, “We have heard from Prince Ali.”

What!

I forgot my headache and was suddenly alert.

“He will return within the week, Your Highnesses,” the monkey trainer added. “With the gift, you have always dreamed of, Princess.”

“Oh my. That _is_ news,” the sultan said.

It certainly was. My suspicions had been correct. Prince Ali was coming back.

“I am surprised that…” The sultan kept talking but I ignored him and tried to catch Jasmine’s eye.

What did she make of this?

We hadn’t talked about Prince Ali in…ages, so I had no idea what her feelings were. I knew that Jasmine had loved Prince Ali once. Perhaps now that we had discovered and undone her curse, she was ready to forgive the prince and was overjoyed to hear he was well. It was a testament to how little I had managed to change that my heart calmed its unsteady beating when I observed that the princess was unmoved by the Ababwans’ announcement.

It was wrong. I shouldn’t be panicking about losing Jasmine. She wasn’t an object and I had no right to her, despite the silly fantasies I had been concocting all day.

But besides all that, unmoved was perhaps too apt a description, for Jasmine was practically frozen in her seat. Even her hands had stopped moving. I nuzzled the hand that hovered above my head. It twitched and she started stroking my fur again.

I understood. The princess was still in shock and was undecided on how she felt about the news. She would need time to process.

However, the bell-ringer did not comprehend this simple concept. The instant the sultan paused to take a breath, the bell-ringer eagerly asked the princess, “Isn’t this great? Aren’t you happy?”

Everyone stared at him. I growled at the man. It was something I hadn’t had to do since Jasmine had destroyed her headpiece, but honestly, this servant’s manners were appalling. He had practically interrupted the sultan.

The bell-ringer showed no remorse for his rude behavior. He ignored my warning and everyone else’s looks as he gazed upon Jasmine like she was Durga reincarnated.

Finally, she said, “It is a relief to hear Prince Ali is well. How long have you known?”

The bell-ringer opened his mouth, but the monkey trainer, the smarter of the two, sensed how dangerous the question was and spoke first. “Not long, Princess, not long. We heard news of him today in fact. The prince meant to check in earlier, much earlier, but he ran into some trouble on his travels. It was a real trial to find that special gift of yours as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“What special gift, exactly?” the sultan inquired. He glanced at his daughter. “Do you know what it is, Jasmine?”

“No, father. I do not,” she said the words with such finality that I was surprised when the bell-ringer addressed the princess, again.

He spoke with an odd intensity as he asked, “But what do you _want_ it to be? What sort of gift would _ensure_ your forgiveness?”

There was a long tense silence filled only with my growling. The sultan was at a lost. This was the first time he was hearing about Jasmine’s fight with the prince, but he hid his ignorance with a stern expression. The monkey trainer was sweating and looked uncomfortable. The bell-ringer was ogling Jasmine like a besotted fool. And Jasmine…

She wore her thinnest smile. Her eyes were fire, but the princess’s voice was chillier than a winter night as she said, “I do not care what gift Prince Ali deigns to bring me. _Nothing_ could make me forget what he has done.”

I couldn’t believe it. Neither could the bell-ringer. His earlier excitement was gone. He was pale and had actually started to fall to his knees in despair, but the monkey trainer caught him and held the bell-ringer up by his shoulders.

“Well…” the monkey trainer said in an overly loud voice, “It’s been a ball talking to you, Your Royal Highnesses, but we had better be going. Good day to you and all that.” Then he whispered to the bell-ringer in a voice only a tiger could overhear, “Come on, lover-boy. Time to vamoose.”

The monkey trainer basically dragged the idiot bell-ringer into the crowd and soon the strange Ababwan servants were lost from sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, we begin a new arc. 
> 
> I have to admit the closer we get to the climax, the harder these chapters get to write and edit, so the slower the updates will be I'm afraid. However, I do have good news. I've taken a break from Sue's Curse for a few months so I can focus on this story. Despite the steady increase in difficulty, I am still very excited about this story and the cool things I have planned.
> 
> All that said, I want to thank you all for your support. Hearing from you guys means the world to me and I look forward to seeing what you all make of this chapter and the ones to come.
> 
> Speaking of which, any guesses for who those strange Ababwans were?


End file.
